


The Angel

by Beabaseball (beabaseball)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Cyborgs, Gen, IN SPACE!, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prostitution, Rebellion, Space Opera, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:23:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 91,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beabaseball/pseuds/Beabaseball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As sons of influential families, proteges Francis Bonnefoy and Arthur Kirkland have spent the last nine years on the moon of Jupiter 2, learning in the intergalactic empire’s greatest military university. A month before their graduation, they’re involved in an accident from which Arthur cannot recover without major experimental surgery done on the fly by the Academy’s greatest medical and engineering students— turning him into the greatest weapon the empire has ever possessed, turning the already struggling rebel troops desperate. </p><p>In a attempt to stop the increasingly violent assaults, the rebellion manages to send two of its most loyal, orphans Alfred and Matthew, into the heart of the Empire as "companions." Their mission: find and destroy the source of the Angel Assaults.</p><p>000</p><p>Warnings include: violence, war, dystopias, mass-slaughter (non graphic) , body modification (cyborgs), regulated prostitution, PTSD, descriptions of medical practices.</p><p>Inspired by Shachaai’s  post ( http://shachaai.tumblr.com/post/39250393201/space-cyborg-idek-drama-au ), introduced to me and co-plotted by dyrimthespeaker, who also provided the majority of Arthur’s characterization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Phoenix - Fall Out Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Voyager 1](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Voyager+1).



000

The 12th And Smallest Moon of Jupiter 2— Derse.

The seniors of Dominus Academia enjoyed many privileges, such as godlike respect from the lower rungs, private dormitory rooms, a lack of curfew and—a less often invoked privilege—permission to skip their final exams if and only if the Academy’s tutors and professors believed the senior in question was skilled enough that an exam would be nothing more than a formality. Two to three seniors in any given class of three hundred would be except from, perhaps, one exam each. It was not uncommon for an entire graduating class to forget about the exam-skipping privilege, simply because the odds were so against their favor. 

The class of 5074, however, skipped eight final exams their graduating year. 

One was Li Wang from Cherry 35, who skipped his final Chemical Weaponry exam. Another skipped Recovery & Reconnaissance, though it wasn’t particularly surprising, as Berwald Oxenstierna was from a particularly cold and dark planet, Scandan, whose thick atmosphere allowed for easy terraforming but was left perpetually frosty due to its distance from a star. All residents of Scandan were trained in basic rescue procedures from a young age.

Six exams were skipped by two students, a nearly unheard of event in Academy history. Both of them skipped their Focus exams, which were traditionally taken a month before the official graduation ceremony.

Francis Bonnefoy of G. Versailles XIV, (Louie, as residents called it, the end result of a long and complicated history of typos and mispronunciations of official reports) skipped his exams in Troop Management and Care, Empire History and Strategy. 

Arthur E. Kirkland—the youngest of the infamous Kirkland family, some of the first colonizers of Brittannic, the Four-Stack Planet, the planet most famous for the utilization of a Stacks System—skipped Chemical Weaponry, Espionage, and Strategy.

Bonnefoy and Kirkland confronted each other in the dorm room halls mere minutes after the electronic mail announcing their unprecedented exceptions. 

“Sourcils,” Bonnefoy said, printed electronic mail in his hand, his arms crossed over his chest. He was, as usual, out of uniform and more gorgeous for it. 

“Frog,” said Kirkland. His red uniform was buttoned to the top and his pants had recently been ironed. He too held a printed electronic mail crumpled in his fist.

“I have some news you’ll be extremely interested in,” said Bonnefoy, waving his paper. 

“Funny. I do too,” said Kirkland, a wicked grin on his face. 

The nearby students took a few steps away, unsure if the tension mounting in the air between the two would erupt into one of the rare but violent brawls which were not uncommon among stressed seniors. With the end of their nine year schooling and a lifetime of military service ahead of them, tempers ran high and patience ran low. A handful of fights each year was not unexpected, and the medical staff and guards guaranteed that no one ever walked away with much more than a scratch. The Academy was one of the safest places in the galaxy, aside from the capital of the capital planet, Pompeii, Rome, Italia.

In the same movement, both Kirkland and Bonnefoy thrust their printed notes into each other’s faces, shouting for the other to run off cowering in the face of accomplishment. A moment passed between them.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Kirkland. 

“Couilles,” said Bonnefoy.

“All right, we can make this work. We can still make this work,” said Kirkland. “Whoever gets the highest total scores on the rest of the exams wins definitively, including the exams the other’s been excepted from. How’s that sound?” 

Bonnefoy nodded. “Fair. And if you help me with the chemical weaponry, I’ll help you with history.” 

“Deal. And booze it up out of spite during the strategy exam? Bluno’s Bar?” 

“You have never had a better plan in your life.” 

000

The drinking at Bluno’s Bar—just a short bullet rain ride away—like many other things between Bonnefoy and Kirkland, became a competition. Unlike most of their contests, Francis Bonnefoy was an uncontested winner. Arthur Kirkland simply could not hold his alcohol. 

They stumbled out of the bar at 23:39:07, arms wrapped around each other and grinning from ear to ear. They stumbled from side to side, each doing their best to steady the other until they finally made it to the bullet train station at 23:44:49. It took a moment for them to fumblingly insert their ID cards into the access doors to the very full loading dock. 

Trains on the Earth That Was, Francis could tell you from his studies in Empire History, were loud and rancorous, noisy polluting beasts which shot sparks and crashed frequently. They were no longer on the Earth That Was, however, but on Derse, the small terraformed moon of Jupiter 2. Like all other planets within the Empire, everything was regulated and safe, including the trains, which were separated from the loading dock by force fields at all times while the trains were in motion.

There were no such things as glitches. It was entirely planned that all trains throughout the empire docked at the exact same time, allowing the force fields to work on an inexpensive timer rather than a sensor. Fifteen years prior, when the Academy’s star was a few degrees different, the docking time had been three minutes and seven seconds earlier. Due to a minor circuitry situation, each train station on Derse had to manually reset the timers on the force field. Therefore, it was the error of a then-newly trained station mechanic, who had gone on to become head mechanic, that the timers of the particular line going from Battery Square to Dominus Acadamia’s front entrance had only been reset by three minutes and two seconds.

For five seconds, three minutes before the train’s arrival, the force field lowered entirely, and Francis and Arthur—leaning heavily against it to support their drunken bodies, as all the benches were filled—fell onto the track.

It took them a few moments to orient themselves, wondering why they were suddenly on their backs and why their rear ends hurt so badly. 

A few moments later, someone nearby shouted, “Are the force fields down?” 

By the time Francis had stumbled back onto his feet and found himself face-against the force field, his heart thumping and his stomach beginning to churn. It was 23:48:30, and the force fields were not down not down NOT DOWN.

It was remarkable how quickly he sobered. He beat his fist against the force field. People on the dock began to scream. The clock showing how long it would be until the next train was ticking down rapidly. Arthur was still in the middle of the track, clutching his rear and saying, “What’s all the ruckus?” 

A station worker knelt against the force field next to Francis. “Stay as close to the force field and away from the track as you possibly can. We’re working as quickly as we can to get you out. Please remain calm. Proper authorities have already been called. Please, remain calm.”

Francis grabbed Arthur’s wrist and tugged him towards the edge of the track, pressing their backs against the now-very-present force field and trying to steady his breathing as Arthur refused to stand straight, demanding in his drunken state to know what was going on. Arthur never could hold his alcohol or sober up nicely, Francis reflected as he stared at the clock across from them, feeling the force field against his back. Staring at the clock in front of them. 

00:00:31…

00:00:30…

00:00:29…

00:00:28…

00:00:27…

000

“Caer Beilschmidt,” said the aide. Germania Beilschmidt, head of Dominus Acadamia, looked up from his desk, which was covered in perfectly aligned pens, pencils and papers. His handwriting was flawless cursive. His long blond hair was braided into perfectly symmetrical knots, which were part of old traditions at his home planet.

“Speak,” said Germania Beilschmidt. “I don’t have all day.”

“There’s been an incident, sir. Two of the students, Kirkland and the elder Bonnefoy—they’ve been in an accident. They’re currently in medical care. Bonnefoy will survive, but Kirkland has died twice thus far. They don’t believe his body can support him anymore.”

“Is my son present?” 

“He is, Sir,” the aide said. 

“I want live feed from the operating room,” said Germania Beilschmidt. He set down his pen and sat back in his chair, looking to the screen on the side of the room. With a few frantic clicks, an image appeared on the monitor. 

Ludwig Beilschmidt was covered from head to toe in his scrubs. Only his piercing blue eyes were uncovered. He was proud of his twenty-twenty vision and the dexterity of his large hands. He didn’t so much as glance at the screen which had lit up in front of him with his father’s image, concentrating on deftly maneuvering the needle and thread in his hands, even as he said, “Father. This is unexpected.”

“Tell me the damage.” Germania Beilschmidt said.

“His chest is badly injured. Many of his internal organs are ruptured. His head is relatively intact, and so we’ve set up a life support system to keep his brain functioning. For the time being, he is alive in that manner, but unconscious and unable to communicate or be of any use. Our last two attempts to reconnect the brain to the rest of his body have been unsuccessful. We’ve had to revive him twice. Either he’ll remain comatose as a head in a jar or he’ll die, Sir,” Ludwig said. 

“His family will be most upset.” 

“We’ve done all we can think of, Sir.” 

Germania Beilschmidt did not sigh as much as left out a huff of disappointed air. Ludwig flinched all the same. “The military will be upset as well. It’s a shame to lose someone so useful.”

“A useful mind, anyway,” one of the surgeons who was not Ludwig said, though Ludwig turned to glare at them. Their body was offscreen, and Germania Beilschmidt did not recognize the voice as any surgeon or student he was familiar with. “If he were just a body, he would be replicable.”

Where Germania heard, if only we’d lost what was already cannon fodder for the rebellion, Ludwig appeared to have heard something else. On the monitor, his head jerked upward, his blue eyes wide.

“Father,” said Ludwig. “If I can preserve Kirkland’s life, may I be exempt from my final exams?”

000

The doctors stabilized Kirkland’s life support first, hooking up his brain to artificial lungs and an artificial heart, adding bits and taking them away as necessary until brainwave function was stable, if incomprehensible. The second thing the doctors did was set a time limit.

Three days, they decided. Three days on that life support system would be all Kirkland was guaranteed. Afterwards, the likelihood of permanent brain damage or a rejection of the new body would be too high to bother. 

They took the remains of Kirkland’s body—most of a pair of legs and arms, part of a spine, some ligaments, some marrow and bone shards—and they called in the Bio and Engineer students. 

They welded a skeleton out of adamite and threaded the top of the spinal cord with wires. They wove steel into Kirkland’s limbs. They soaked his body in electronics and plastic. They realigned his eyeballs and slid links into his skull, making the attachment of the life support system to the reinforced chest cavity of half-blood-half-iron a smooth fit. They put six ports in his back, three round holes in a vertical line, two inches in diameter each sinking into his body where each shoulder blade would be. Then—when someone pointed out the potential difficulties of surviving with such an appearance—the surgeons spent six hours grafting pale skin over the exposed metal.

And then they turned him on. 

000

For Ludwig, it was like watching the birth of a masterpiece. 

His three Focuses were in Management, Medicine and Engineering. He was near the top of his class in all three, and watching the product of all his work, the fruits of his labors, the culmination of cooperation between all three of his Focuses—

He could hardly breathe as they hooked Kirkland up to the computer. True, they were not actually doing much more than running several basic simulations and MRIs through the new technology to ensure that his brain was still active in its comatose state and that noninvasive brain scans would be possible without disrupting his wiring. 

The computer they had been granted permission to use was not only the largest but one of the newest in the medical facility, with an extraordinary amount of processing power and various applications. It was also the only computer they were granted access to which had enough ports to effectively hook Kirkland in. 

The cords hooked into Kirkland’s back ports smoothly. Three to the left ports, three to the right. They were large cords, and so the fit was tight, but they managed by leaning Kirkland against one of the main processors and having an intern hold him steady. Feliciano Vargas—one of the other Medical Focuses, and one of the two grandsons of Their Great Lord Romulus, Body of the Empire—had commented that they looked like angel wings. Ludwig did not see what he meant, but nodded regardless. He was not about to disagree with Their Great Lord Romulus’ beloved grandson on such a trivial matter. 

He was also too busy trying very hard to not wring his hands. The Engineering Focus students were beginning to give him thumbs-up signs, and waving to the Medical Focus students who were in charge of operating the computers, as the computers were property of the Medical department. 

The final checks were cleared. It had been three days. The computer was turned on and humming, Kirkland was hooked in and held in place properly. It was now or never. He would live or he would die.

(Ludwig wished he’d had more time to plan.)

The program to awaken Kirkland’s body and bring him out of his comatose state was launched. The intern holding Kirkland shuddered at the static residue from the wild electric pulse. There was a beeping, and then a buzz, and Kirkland’s eyes slid open. 

His eyelids fluttered, more accurately. Ludwig prided himself on being accurate. Kirkland’s eyelids were fluttering and his fingers were twitching. The screen showing his brainwaves indicated a large frequency increase. The heart monitor beat steadily at 84 bpm.

Ludwig licked his lips. “Status,” he said.

“Heart rate 84 bpm, blood pressure 120 over 80, brain wave frequency is 8 Hz. Body temperature is stable at 94.7, hydration…” 

Ludwig nodded along to the report. “Run the first scan.” 

The room stood, silently observing the technician typing away at one of the massive keyboards. 

“Scan completed. There doesn’t seem to be any brain damage and we have an extremely clear picture. His information processing centers are very active while his emotional, remembrance and stimuli centers are relatively dormant, as though in a drowsy or sleepy state.” 

Ludwig frowned. 

“Continue running the planned tests.” 

The technician nodded, and for the next two hours they stood (until Feliciano Vargas complained of his legs hurting, and so chairs were promptly fetched) and watched the scans be completed, until very suddenly the technician said, “He’s responded.” 

“What?” said another. 

“Kirkland. He responded through the computer to our last scan. The cues fed directly into his brain. He’s responding to them and it’s translating into the computer.” 

Ludwig quickly stood from his chair and hurried to the side of the technician. “Run another scan, similar to this one. Orders.”

The technician did. Kirkland, honest to the story, responded. 

It was in binary.

Ludwig continued watching the screen even as he pointed to one of the fifteen year old interns standing around the edges of the room. “You. Fetch Kiku Honda from Coding and Ciphers. His dorm is Claudius B102. I want him here in no less than ten minutes.”

The intern scampered off. Seven minutes later, Kiku Honda hurried in, struggling to walk at the speed of a sprint.

“You asked for me Beilschmidt-san?” Honda said. He readjusted his red uniform and stared at the floor rather than Ludwig’s face. Honda had a large collection of photos of all the senior class in various stages of nudity, which had been confiscated by Ludwig (who was also a proud student leader) the year before. They hadn’t ever spoken before, and had yet to speak much since, but Honda was the best in their class with computers and coding, and Ludwig was not the sort to mistake moral misconduct with inefficiency.

“I need you to serve as a translator. Kirkland appears to be able to communicate in binary while he is attached to the computer and given specific information or commands. We need to study this phenomenon now in case it’s impossible to recreate.”

Honda nodded and hurried in his shuffling way to the computer. He brushed his hair out of his face and squinted at the computer screen. “He says that he is unable to comply with the command to go left due to being attached to the computer and unable to access his body, Beilschmidt-san.” 

“Can he answer questions, then?”

Honda paused and began to type. “He says ‘yes.’” 

“Ask his name.” 

The keyboards clicked. “‘B, F-P 94578111097, Kirkland, E. Arthur.’”

“Age.” 

“Nineteen years, forty-eight days, and approximately seven hours, or three hours and forty five minutes, thirty seven, eight, nine seconds. He seems unsure, and is continuously updating the number he gave for the seconds.” 

They continued for another thirty minutes, Ludwig feeding Honda questions which he entered as information and translated the response. They gradually began asking more complicated questions. Several recording devises had joined the already placed archival cameras. Caer Beilschmidt was contacted, and began to supply questions of his own. 

“If one has a small outnumbered squadron of troops surrounded in a small basin, how would one respond?” 

Kiku stuttered out the response, “‘If airships are available, bomb. If it is possible to sabotage long range weaponry, do. Call for aid from the nearest unit, as in accordance with policy, unless a unit is meant for espionage, an additional unit should be no more than one darsect distance to provide quick aid. If an overwhelmingly successful rescue is unlikely, the outnumbered squadron is to act as bait for the second unit to pin any rebel forces. If other units are indisposed, the stranded squadron is to radio all necessary information to base if possible, then attach time bombs to their chests set for five minutes. All ammunition possible is to be fired at rebels indiscriminately or disposed of via explosives. Once the ammunition and supplies are disposed of they are to run into enemy lines and detonate their bombs in the thickest possible conditions.’” 

Germania Beilschmidt, from within his screen, nodded. “Give him the specifics for the present battle on Moldovera. The coordinates are 423-29-148. The information is being relayed to you via electronic mail as I speak.”

Honda nodded and once again began typing away. He recited the response—which took a whole minute to answer, longer than any of the previous lag times—taking ten times the time it took for Kirkland to create it. 

It began with “Have the troops currently in the city of Glen Do release the M05 poison gas,” and ended with total annihilation.

“Hold him in this state for the time being,” Caer Germania said. 

Then he was gone. 

000

It was two hours after the initial question that news of total vicious victory on Moldovera.

Kirkland had been hooked into the machine for nearly five hours. 

Kiku typed, “Your plan was a success,” and the simple reply was an affirmative. 

Ecstatic, buoyant, radiant and confident, they unhooked Kirkland from the computer, a crate of alcohol on the way to celebrate their newest, greatest accomplishment. They crowded around the terminal, cheering and jeering and ready to swarm. There was much laughing and back-patting as brain connection was severed and the wires were unhooked. They waited, no longer with baited breath or on the edges of their seat to see if they had successfully saved a life they’d thought unsavable, but instead they were mulling with energy and the joy of a job done better than ever hoped for. The happiest accident of all. A miracle. With each unplugged port cord, there was a whoop of cheers. When the final cord was taken from the port of Kirkland’s left shoulder blade, Kirkland opened his eyes, opened his mouth, and screamed. 

000

Francis awoke the day before. He was still confined to his bed. He initially hadn’t been able to feel his legs at all and he was still unsure if that was an effect of the accident or the drugs. The head station mechanic had been terminated permanently, and good riddance. He deserved it for making Francis live off liquids for the coming months, forcing him to go into physical rehabilitation when he was supposed to be graduating, and giving him such a killer headache.

He hadn’t heard any news of Arthur, and he hadn’t given it much thought. Arthur was undoubtedly in one of the nearby rooms, also confined to a bed, or perhaps under heavier sedatives (given the Kirkland temper, especially when ill, it wasn’t unlikely). 

There was some part of his mind which considered that Arthur may have been more seriously injured, but it was not an especially persuasive though. It seemed more likely that Arthur had already been released and was simply being passive aggressive about visiting Francis in the hospital because he was upset about losing the drinking contest so badly. Or perhaps Arthur was frightened that Francis’ family may show up mid visit. In fact, the more Francis thought about it, the more he wondered if Arthur was simply frightened of running into his younger sister, Marianne, who hadn’t come around to visit him either.

Not that he was upset. 

Francis was a calm, rational individual. His teachers had always told him it was a strong point of his. He could think through panic and pressure. He could claw into the archives of his mind and pull out a specific historic event to draw reference from in most any given situation. He knew the words to use when soldiers were frazzled beyond help and he knew how to give clear and concise directions, even to those in the deepest throws of panic. He knew how to turn a battle around in any given situation. He just couldn’t plan ahead or admit that sometimes defeat was preferable to a pyrrhic victory. 

This may have been connected to the reason why despite how often nurses came in, Francis still did not ask them to remove the clock. 

23:30:24

23:30:25

23:30:26

He didn’t know what he would do when the clock hit 24:50:00.

He wouldn’t be hit by a train. He knew he wouldn’t be hit by a train. He was in a hospital, in a bed, on a comfortable mattress and absolutely sober and nowhere near train tracks. He didn’t know how it was possible that he remembered being hit. 

(But he did. He thought he did. He was pretty sure. The tremor in his bones told him so.)

He was watching the clock, wondering not very distantly—not very consciously—why neither Arthur nor Marianne was here to distract him, when it came ripping down the hall. 

A scream from—somewhere. 

The western wing. 

The rooms weren’t soundproofed, in case patients cried for help, but in all his years of fencing injuries and vibrator accidents, Francis had never heard such a scream come through the halls. It was all the force of a newborn child and the pain and terror of a tortured dog. One who had fallen of a bridge. (Put him down, his father said, handing Francis a gun.) In all their years of rivalry and mutual torment, he had never heard Arthur scream that way.

Forgetting about the numbness in his legs, Francis ripped off his blankets and got to his feet. He fell down almost immediately. With hardly a pause, he crawled to a wheelchair beside the door and hoisted himself up into it with much less difficulty than he expected.

He sped through the hall as fast as his arms could steer him. The scream had silenced some seconds before, fading into short, pitiful squeals and intelligible shouts. Francis could keep his level head. It was his skill. He ignored the ringing in his ears and the pounding in his frontal lobe until he reached a large double door at the end of a hallway. He burst through without even attempting to announce his presence. A strange jolt of sensation jolted through his numbed legs. 

It was, it was certainly, Arthur crumpled on the floor with a wide circle of purple lab coasts around him.

But it couldn’t have been. The Arthur Francis knew would have never crumpled or cried like an animal to be put out of its misery. Arthur’s skin was a few hairs paler than the skin of this Arthur on the floor. Arthur’s eyes didn’t shine so brightly through the fingers frantically rubbing at his tears. Arthur didn’t blubber or moan or whimper. Arthur didn’t struggle to his feet and dash towards Francis, throw arms around him and shout, “God, Francis, what did I do? Tell me what—there were over three hundred thousand on Moldovera, and did I—”

But that was exactly what this Arthur did. 

Francis wrapped his arms around Arthur’s trembling shoulders and lay his head next to Arthur’s sopping cheek. 

“Shh,” Francis said. “I can’t help you if you don’t shush.” 

Slowly, Arthur quieted somewhat. Enough that the doctors were able to pry Arthur off of Francis and the security guards were able to escort him safely out of the room to- to- to somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere good. Francis wasn’t sure, he had been too distracted, to frazzled to hear anything outside of Arthur’s heaving breathing and the humming beneath his skin. Now that Arthur was gone however, taken by the medical students—the best in the galaxy, at Dominus Acadamia. They would take good care of him—Francis was able to hear the head of the Academy speak over the screen.

“…wiping. He may be useful with keeping Kirkland calm should this become a repetitive situation.”

“What?” Francis said. He turned to look at the screen where Caer Beilschmidt’s torso-and-up was represented. 

The headmaster’s icy blue eyes focused on Francis, and he was reminded for a moment of how the Beilschmidts and his family used to feud. In that moment, wheelchair bound and helpless, he was glad those days were over. “Consider yourself fortunate to not be mindwiped because of what you’ve just seen. You may have just proven yourself valuable.”

Francis was forcibly confided to his room, where the clock ticked 23:39:20, and the train was ever-coming.

000

Guards were brought to Francis’ room a few days later. They opened the door and saluted. Francis returned the salute, though he was still unable to reliably stand. The doctors’ visits had not been as frequent since his excursion in the wheelchair. Marianne had still yet to visit him. 

The guards came and saluted, transferred Francis very gently from his bed to the wheelchair, and they wheeled him down the hall. They passed the large double doors, which were the last thing Francis recalled directionally from his last excursion outside his room. They wheeled him into an elevator and up to the roof, where a military lift was waiting. Francis was wheeled in and his chair was strapped and he strapped to his chair with great care and attention to his comfort, though not much paid to his consent. Despite the precautions, the flight was smooth and conducted entirely without giving Francis access to a view to confirm the location, and there were no clocks aboard to give Francis an idea of how much time had passed since takeoff. Thank god. 

It had seemed like a short flight, and the center spire of the Dominus Acadamia’s main science building was still in view, so the flight couldn’t have been so far, but Francis didn’t ask questions as he was wheeled out of the lift and into another building which he didn’t recognize.

They took another elevator, and three doors down from the doors was a large square room cut in two by what appeared to be one-way glass. The outside was fashioned as an observation center similar to the ones Francis remembered from their interrogation classes, which Francis had excelled in but not been chosen to Focus in. The room was fashioned as a hospital room, with a white bed and walls, a holographic window, two sleek metal chairs and a clock on the far wall. It ticked along merrily, unaware of any distress it may have caused.

A conversation was already in progress. Arthur sat in one chair, his skin appearing torn in places, beneath which something shone when the overhead light hit it in a certain way. Across from him in the second chair was a man dressed in the golden uniform of an Acadamia professor or Military Leader. 

“…therefore, in order to avoid over congesting your brain, you will be subjected to mindwipes at the end of each session. The greatest side effects we imagine would occur would be lethargy for a short period afterwards and some damage to your short term memory. Alternatively, not giving you the mind wipes may cause you severe stress, predispose you to several mental disorders which would usually be related to aging, as well as a potential to dethatch you emotionally from others. Do you understand why this decision has been made?”

Arthur nodded. “Yes, Sir,” he said. He seemed no worse for wear than he had when Francis had last seen him sober before the accident, as they stepped out of—before they met at Bluno’s. He looked like he had in class, his back straight and his eyes wide and earnest. 

“And you consent unconditionally to using your new capabilities for the benefit of the Empire when called on?”

“Yes, Sir.” 

“Thank you, Kirkland.” 

The man in the golden uniform stood and saluted. Arthur stood and returned the salute. As the man in the golden suit left, Arthur shuffled back into his bed and curled up, slowly running his fingers over his arms and legs, fidgeting with the tatters of his skin and bringing his palms up to his eyes when his shoulders began to shake and his eyes grew wet and swollen. 

“Bonnefoy is here, sir,” the guard to Francis’ left said. Francis tore his eyes away from the window Arthur was beyond to see the golden-uniformed man approaching. Salute. At ease. God, he wanted to go back to his dorm and sleep for a week. 

“Have you been made aware of your situation, Bonnefoy?” the gold-uniformed man said.

“No, Sir,” said Francis. He wasn’t used to being seated—even by necessity—when speaking to professors or military leaders. His eyes flickered to the man’s chest. There were rows upon rows of decorations. Francis finally managed to place him as one of the Generals who had somewhat retired from the war with the rebels in order to oversee the military forces for the area of the Academy. His name escaped Francis.

“Several days ago, you witnessed a top secret military experiment involving Kirkland. It was a rousing success with a few minor setbacks, such as the event which you witnessed, which was the result of a mental backup. A simple mindwipe is all that’s necessary, but they are simply patches and cannot account for emotional distress outside of the Initiative which may affect the process. You skipped your exam in Troop Management and Care, did you not?” 

And history and strategy, Francis thought. “Excessive mind wiping can permanently damage a brain, sir—” he blurted. Then. Quickly. “Sorry, Sir. I meant, yes, Sir, I did.”

The General frowned at Francis, wrinkles creasing his face. Francis swallowed and tried to not waver. The guards beside him shifted uncomfortable. Finally, the General seemed to decide it hadn’t been the greatest offense and simple continued to speak as if the break hadn’t occurred. “You were also acquainted with Kirkland and got along with him positively prior to his accident.” 

“Yes, Sir.”

“Kirkland has been promoted,” the General said. “After physical therapy and graduating, he will be moved to Pompeii and set to work in a unique position. He will need a caregiver who can act as both an emotional and technical support capable of taking charge, informing authorities of situations, and calming him if necessary. You, coincidentally, have just set yourself up as the first candidate. If you refuse, you will be mindwiped to the time of your initial waking.”

Francis took a breath and steadied his nerves. If he were standing, he was certain he would be getting close to lightheaded. “A question, Sir.”

“Permission granted.”

“What would my job be, more specifically?”

“This is an experimental position,” was all the General said. 

“And if I should wish to resign from that position?” 

“It would be discouraged.” 

Francis took another breath. 

“You have until tomorrow to decide. Until then, you will remain here.”

“What about my family, Sir?” 

“They should not be a concern in this matter. Communication will not be restricted, though the nature of your job will be strictly confidential. However, you are not permitted to contact anyone outside of this facility until you have given an answer.” 

Well, that was straight forward enough. 

Francis looked back to the window which Arthur was through.

He was still curled on the bed. His pillow was beginning to darken. His shoulders still shook. In the lull between the General’s words, if Francis listened closely, he could hear Arthur’s quiet wails of, “Oh, God, how am I supposed to explain to Mum, oh, hic, oh, God, fuck, hic.”

000

After two months of extensive surgery, additional medical treatment and physical therapy, Francis Bonnefoy of G. Versaille XIV and Arthur Kirkland of Britannic graduated after nine years at Dominus Acadamia, as the only two students in the school’s history to graduate exempt from all of their exams. 

It was a quiet affair. Their families and close friends were invited. Headmaster Caer Beilschmidt said a few words about perseverance in the face of difficulty, loyalty to the empire and duty to its citizens. He handed them the diplomas silently.

There was a small luncheon afterwards. Caer Kirkland got drunk and Lady Bonnefoy joined her, leaving their children to record the proceeding breaches of protocol. Marianne Bonnefoy gave her elder brother a photo album and a box of chocolates. The elder Kirkland brothers all pitched in to give Arthur an old sock, a dead black snake and a book on relationship advice. 

The next day, Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy boarded the ship to Pompeii, Rome, Italia, the core planet of the Empire, where they slid, silently, out of the ranks of men.

000

The 2nd Moon of Prien, An Outlier—Joten

They had warning. The first moon of Prien had been annihilated utterly. Meteors had rained down on the planet’s surface and dust had clouded the skies of the second moon, Joten, for days. The dust would have likely lasted even longer, had the Empire not chosen the third day to attack. 

Alfred and Matthew were half brothers—orphans— and had called Joten home for the few years they’d been stationed there. They’d woken three days before to look up into the sky and see their sister moon glow red. Then redder. Then it had finally broken up in front of their eyes. 

The first meteorites had hit two hours later and wreaked havoc on Joten’s capital city. What little of a capital building existed, in any case. Prien was an outlying planet, relatively far from the planet and space station cluster which made up the inner Empire. 

In fact, very little lived on Joten except for the small settlements surrounding the city which made up Joten’s capital, and a major infestation of rebels.

Joten, mostly an ice planet, had burned. Between the meteors and the relentless assault of the Angel Assault bomber ships causing moon-wide fog and firestorms, Joten had been swallowed in a matter of days. 

They had been shoved onto the last evacuation ship which was able to leave the atmosphere. It was packed to the brim with what supplies were able to be salvaged. Crammed in on top of the packages of food and water containers were the last few survivors of Joten. They fled to the even-further-out dwarf planet of Uliratha, which was home to a larger and better hidden rebel base.

Off of the moon with the tiny population of one million, only seven hundred survived. 

“We were helping people board the ships, and Al was getting the rations out of the storage,” Matthew said, his voice a whisper, as the rebel nurse draped a blanket over his and Alfred’s shoulders. “We didn’t have time to get everyone out. We’re supposed to have more time.” 

“Almost none of the ships got off the ground,” Alfred added. His shivering was terrible, and he curled into Matthew’s side. Had he not been scowling, he would have looked small and frightened, but it was all shock and anger which shook his frame. “It was fucked up.”

The nurse nodded and put his hands on their shoulders. “You’re safe here,” he said. “It’ll be all right for a while.”

“No,” said Matthew. “It’s not safe anywhere.” 

They had learned long ago that there was nowhere completely safe. They had learned it through example by their parents and friends. 

“Your mother was murdered by the Empire,” a rebel general, Steve Hunter, said to Alfred hours later. Days later. It depended on the rotation time. It depended on the planet. It felt like a long time after the attack. A lifetime ago since the skies had spat out rocks and sleek ovular ships had hovered high above their heads. Steve Hunter turned to Matthew, “and your father.” 

“Yeah,” said Alfred, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. His legs were crossed and propped up on an empty small crate. In the chair beside him, Matthew sat beside him, half curled in on himself, eyes sunken and mouth closed tightly. “We know.”

“You both understand what they can do. But you’re still here, even though you know the odds.” 

“’Course we are,” said Alfred. “—We’re not fucking cowards.” 

“This is what’s right,” said Matthew, leaning forward in his chair, his voice nearly a hiss. “There’s nothing else to do.”

General Hunter nodded slowly, his youthful face—despite an already naturally dark complexion— had been tanned and lined by the powerful rays of Uliratha’s star. When he frowned, as he did then, his worry lines became apparent and his shoulders seemed to slacken. “Then no matter what, you would oppose the Empire?”

“No matter what,” they said. 

(Like their parents before them. And they could not forget what it was to look at the moon burning in the sky and know that what they were seeing was a whole world of life being exterminated. One couldn’t see people on a map.)

“There is an opening,” General Hunter said. From a file to his left on his makeshift desk of two-by-fours and cinderblocks, he pulled out several papers. “The Empire, as you know, prides themselves on their military families and they like keeping their officers… well cared for.”

Alfred leaned forward, his hands dropping from behind his head to take the papers and look at them, leaning towards Matthew to share. His eyebrows furrowed. “Oh hell no.” 

Matthew snatched the papers from Alfred’s hands to look at them more closely. 

“The Empire hires whores. Exclusive whores. Rigorously background checked; very high class hookers. They can get access to the highest of high ranking officer’s houses should they get lucky enough to climb high enough up in the ranks and catch someone important’s eye. I don’t like asking you to do this. But we need at least people totally loyal to the rebellion,” said General Hunter.

“This is the stupidest plan I’ve heard in my life,” said Alfred. “And Matt can’t go anyway!” 

“What?” said Matthew. “If anyone shouldn’t go, it’s you!” 

“What are you talking about? At least I can handle my own. You’d just get—I don’t know. Hurt! Really, really badly hurt!”

“You would get angry and blow your cover and immediately wind up dead!” 

“Would not!”

“Would too!” 

General Hunter let them bicker for a few more short moments before slamming a fist down on the table. The brothers both jumped back to attention, muttering quiet, “Sorry, sir,”s.

“This is a very dangerous mission,” General Hunter said, “and very long-term. We can’t guarantee when or if we would be able to extract you. We already have a pimp in place who is loyal to us, but it’s the prostitutes would be in the greatest danger and able to gather the most information. You are well within your right to refuse, but insider information could be the turning point to this war.” 

Alfred looked at Matthew, and Matthew looked at Alfred. 

“Would we be able to find a way to stop the Angel Initiative?” one of them asked. 

“If you climb high enough in the ranks, yes, we believe the operators of the Angel Initiative would be available,” said General Hunter.

“I’ll do it,” said Alfred. 

“You’re gonna kill yourself,” said Matthew, “I’ll do it.” 

“You’re a fucking twig, Matt.”

“And you’re an idiot. At least I’m smart.” 

“At least I didn’t collapse after the first day of basic.” 

“Why don’t you both go,” said Hunter. “You can cover each other’s backs, make sure neither of you get into trouble, and double your chances of obtaining new information.”

Both brothers paused and stared at each other—not feeling comfortable staring at a general for too long—before muttering a quiet, “We’ll think about it.” 

They were dismissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have very little to say except that 
> 
> VOYAGER I HAS LEFT THE GALAXY YOU GUYS  
> so imma dedicate this fic to that brave little probe out there in the great big unknown, hurtling at unimaginable (to me) speeds towards the center of the universe where I will never be able to go.


	2. Sunshine In A Bag/Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: SUICIDE ATTEMPT
> 
> Arthur isn't depressed. He just feels he knows the approximate value of a human life. Francis disagrees.

They had been working as companions for three years and, help him, Alfred was jealous of how many compliments Matthew’s hair got. He still wasn’t entirely sure what their stylists had done to their hair just a few weeks before that first interview—sex—with the director of military companions on Italia. Whatever the stylists had done, it hadn’t gone away over the last three years and Matthew’s hair was just as bouncy, curled and silky as it had been when Alfred first noticed, having been distracted by a barber trying to shave his head. He couldn’t have been distracted for more than thirty minutes, though, which made it all even more frustrating as  _what the hell could they have done in thirty minutes?_

Whatever, though. It wasn’t as though Alfred cared  _that_ much whenever Matthew came back to their shared luxury dorm with semen in his hair, saying things like,  _ugh, someone masturbated with my hair again._

Alfred didn’t really want people to masturbate on his hair. He might have appreciated more hair pulling—and extremely embarrassing fact he had discovered about himself during training (sex) and which he now had to try hard to avoid, lest he lose too much of himself in the act.

Still.

He still wasn’t quite used to Matthew’s hair being given so much attention, even if it had been three years since they began their super-secret spy mission in the heart of the Empire. As prostitutes. It was a pretty easy job once he had the motions down, and most of their clientele were tolerable enough. They rarely got a serious sadist who wouldn’t specifically choose one of the professional masochists, and they rarely got a masochist who wouldn’t rather go to a professional sadist. They got momma-or-daddy kinkers, they gave blowjobs and rimjobs, they rode and they fucked, they begged or they shouted, they dressed up in costumes and crawled across the floors with dildos in their mouths or plugs in their asses. They fucked and sucked their way up the hierarchy. They got into the bedrooms of the highest levels of military command.

Despite all that, despite three years of undercover work, they had yet to find hide or hair of the Angel Initiative, and Alfred was losing so much patience that he was throwing a sulk-fest over people liking Matthew’s somehow-altered hair better than his naturally unruly close crop.

“Dude, what the hell?” Matthew said, brushing out his gorgeous hair. “You’re sulking so hard you’re practically on the floor.”  
  
“I hate your hair and your stupid baby face,” Alfred said. His cheekbones jutted out much more then Matthew’s did. A trait from one of their fathers, most likely.

“You got all the attention when we were younger. Stop complaining. Besides, I didn’t think you liked people touching your hair that much.”

“It’s not that I like it,” Alfred said, rolling onto his stomach on his bed. He had previously been lying horizontally on it, his head hanging down off the edge, his bangs for once all going in the same direction. “I’m actually severely creeped out by how many people are going gaga over your hair. I am the brother and I am not amused at all by this. I came along so this stuff wouldn’t happen!”  
  
“You came along to stop me from doing our job.”   
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“Al. Shut up. You’re still hungover from last night, aren’t you?”

“Am not. If I were hungover, I wouldn’t be talking at all right now, I would be on the floor clutching my head.”  
  
“Well, you must still be drunk. Or your immune system has finally given up,” Matthew said, setting down his brush and taking up his clothes, dressing in the latest fashion their conspiratorial manager had procured for them.

It was funny, being a high-class whore for the Empire. It was almost like being a doll. They had no clothes or objects of their own aside from what their manager gave them. Fortunately, having a manager who was also a rebellion plant meant they were largely protected from the little details which plagued many of the wannabe-Empire-prostitutes: bugged rooms, employment scams, violent or exploitive managers, to managers who took advantage of their workers. For those trying to climb ranks already starting in the core of the Empire, becoming a military prostitute was very regulated and very safe. Those lower down in class and further out in the ring were at much more of a risk. For someone coming in from beyond the Empire’s scope or from a planet mostly populated by rebels, their employment prospects were grim at best.

All in all, the potential for being tortured or killed for treason was much easier to deal with when they were also completely certain that their manager was on their side.

All they had to worry about was getting caught and finding information useful to the rebellion before the whole rebellion was wiped out.

The attacks which had destroyed Prien and Joten three years before—called the Angel Initiative, or the Angel Attacks, though no one seemed to be quite sure why, since there wasn’t a single holy thing about them—had remained just as swift and violent over the years. There had been rumors some months ago that the utter destruction of Moldovera may have been the Angel Initiative’s first strike.

A trial run, perhaps.

The thought of finding the monsters behind it made Alfred’s stomach do all sorts of flip-flops.

“At least take some medicine or something to get yourself more together before the party tonight,” Matthew said, buttoning up his outfit. “It’s the big biennial one, remember?”  
  
“Medicine makes me sleepy,” Alfred said, running his hands through his hair.  
  
“I’d rather have you sleepy than having you be mouthy, honestly.” Matthew finished with his clothes and began putting on some gentle makeup while Alfred rolled on the bed, moaning. “Fiiine.”

000

_At least he’s sort of back to himself,_  Matthew thought as he and Alfred moved through the party. They were sticking close together, as they tended to, so that they could keep an eye on each other and any dark corners one of them may be slipped into.

They were mostly there for advertising. To kiss and to touch, but not to touch too much. They were at the party to introduce themselves to the Big Wigs. Hand out business cards. Whisper, ‘call me,’ in their ears.

The thing was, there wasn’t a single person at the party who  _wasn’t_  a Big Wig. Alfred and Matthew had swiftly run out of physical cards and were now relying totally on people’s ability to remember their names.

The building was one of the grandest in Pompeii—the ceiling was domed and painted with the fanciful, ancient sort of images of the sky. Blues, golds, purples, and pinks dotted at the edges. There were images of things, which were not animals, but fluffy, floating sorts of gaseous water masses which at times resembled animals. The masses and colors spun across the borders of the ceiling, changing and morphing. The colors of the ceiling gradually grew darker throughout the party, until the room was mainly lit by old, silver chandeliers. There were many dark corners behind pillars and columns. Many long, curved tables filled with multicolored drinks and sweet treats small enough to fit in a cup, flecked with shredded cocoa beans and ground cane.

Matthew would have to work to keep Alfred away from the miniature cocoa-and-coffee bean cakes. The frosting rose up. It was puffy, light, and tasting vaguely of some fruit which Matthew couldn’t quite place—not that he had to struggle away from the snack bar as much as Alfred did, but Alfred had a bigger weakness for sweets than Matthew, especially for the cocoa and coffee beans, which only grew on certain planets. They were a delicacy reserved for the richest. Their first time tasting the treats was with some of their earlier customers who sometimes set bowls of the cocoa and ground cane out to impress others.

(Sometimes Matthew tried to imagine what it would have been like to have grown up within the brilliantly metallic, bejeweled, reverberating, milk-and-honey streets of Pompeii. He couldn’t.)  
  
He turned his attention back to the partygoers, sweeping away from the sweets table gracefully.

He recognized many of the faces about. Many of them were high level military leaders, but others were socialites. There were bankers with large sweeping coats and gladiators without a single visible scar on them. There were poets and playwrights, Academy teachers and a whole orchestral pit filled with musicians holding everything from traditional strings and woodwinds to standing by their turntables and sitting with their synths.

Matthew moved from one part of the room to the other, picking up Alfred from a heated makeout with the head of the province of Edelston as he went, passing another prostitute from Panera who moved in quickly to pick up the slack. They shuffled to the far corner of the room to try and catch their breath and recover from the bustling party crowd, half of which had begun to dance while the other half hovered around the snack table, watching with mild amusement and intoxication.  
  
“How’re you doing?” Matthew said.  
  
“Well enough. Still kinda drowsy from the meds. You?”  
  
“Pretty good. Haven’t talked to very many people in a while. I’ve been mostly looking around.”  
  
“That’s a whole lot of looking around,” Alfred said, grinning.  He stretched his arms up and twisted his waist, pretending to not notice when one or two eyes flickered towards him. “You sure you didn’t get lost on the way to the bathroom or some—”  
  
While they had been standing there, a server had approached them from behind with a tray of alcohol. Alfred lowered his arms, utterly unaware of the person not a foot away from him. In a single movement, he sent two of the glasses of alcohol flying off the plate and towards the pillar next to them.

There was an earsplitting whine and a loud, shouted swear from behind the pillar which sent Alfred, Matthew and the poor drink server spinning around to stare at the fourth individual hidden in the poor lighting behind the pillar.   
  
There was a short man with unruly hair and bright green eyes which, now that Matthew was able to see him, seemed to glow in the dim light. It may have been a reflection, however. He was sparking wildly, as though someone had set off a firework on his chest. Still, his eyes seemed to cut through just as brightly as the sparks.

Someone screamed. Doors were opening. Matthew heard a small troop of guards enter the room, their heavy boots echoing around the chamber and announcing their approach. He shifted closer to Alfred, quickly wrapping an arm around him as Alfred clung to Matthew’s wrist. They were just frightened prostitutes, staring at a startling scene.

It really was shocking. The man continued to curse, even as his chest continued to spark and the guards coming around them took his arms and began to escort him away. In the dimness of the chandeliers, the sparks were dazzlingly bright, leaving imprints on their eyelids and illuminated the multitude of glistening medals on the sparking man’s chest.  
  
Gently, the guards also took Matthew and Alfred by the arm and escorted them to the front steps where they stood beside each other silently awaiting their ride back to the apartment. The noises of the party resumed behind them. The warm Pompeii wind tousled their hair.

They were in the heart of the Empire, where few rebels ever dared to tread. Where the highest level military figures walked carefree in the streets and sampled cocoa and ground cane as though they were everyday commodities. Everyone who was anyone had been to the Academy at least briefly. Still, as they waited for their car to come, Alfred pressed up against Matthew as they had been taught to do. He was trembling. Matthew wrapped an arm around him. They bit their lips.

“Did you see his medals?” Matthew said, his voice no higher than a whisper.  
  
“Oh my god, Mattie,” Alfred hissed, his voice cracking just slightly. “I didn’t know the ranks could  _go_ that high.”

000

Francis sort of expected something to happen. It had been half a year. It was about time something happened.

Not that he wanted it to happen. He wanted things to happen about the same amount as he wanted a train to run him over.

“You broke your waterproofing,” Francis said, his eyes flat and mouth feeling somewhat dead. “And you didn’t tell anyone.”

“I wasn’t expecting someone to spill shit on me at a party,” Arthur said. His hands were shaking. Occasionally there was a quiet crackle from inside Arthur’s chest resulting in an involuntary twitch.

“These sorts of things aren’t supposed to wait,” Francis said, peeling back the last layers of Arthur’s seared skin. It was a strange and rather disorienting experience to be pulling apart his best friend’s chest, but Francis kept his eyes down, dull, and did it. He was wearing thin rubber gloves to protect himself from electrocution, searching through Arthur’s chest cavity for damage to his internal organs.

It was funny how quickly his job description had grown from caretaker to emergency surgeon and mechanic.

“You have done a fantastic job of fucking yourself up,” Francis said as he carefully wiped away any of the residue alcohol he could find. Arthur grumbled, but said nothing Francis could adequately make out. He responded anyway. “Yes. You should be sorry.”

Three years had done a miraculous job of teaching Francis to understand Mumble Speak. And how to do minor overrides. And to repair shorted circuits. How to use those atrocious supercomputers, which had horrified him since childhood—they always reminded him of the combines on  _Louie_ , which could easily take off an arm or a leg—The last three years had, however, failed to improve his patience with Arthur.

Arthur grumbled again, a bit more quietly, and drooped his head with the faintest of a mechanical whirr which could have easily been mistaken for the occasional buzz of the climate control.

“All right, here’s how it’ll go,” Francis said, removing his hands from Arthur’s chest and straightening up. He looked Arthur in the eyes as best he could with Arthur not cooperating. “Hey. Look at me.” Arthur didn’t. “Look, I’m going to go get some temporary filler so you don’t get electrocuted again, and then we’ll get you a bath. It’ll be nice and scalding. I’ll even get you some soup. Once you’re all cleaned up, I’ll call in the mechanics and they’ll fix you up. We’ve got another meeting with Consul Hellena tomorrow morning to discuss the Angel, okay?”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Arthur muttered, just loud enough that Francis could make it out without guessing based on the tone of his grumblings.   
  
“I don’t much either, but it’s our job now,” Francis said. He stood and began to fidget with the rubber gloves, slowly working at pulling them off. “And you knew it would be.”   
  
“I know.”  
  
“So no more griping,” Francis said, turning to go retrieve the promised waterproof wrapping.   
  
“Francis.”   
  
Francis paused and turned back. “Yes?”

“You swear the Angel isn’t actually my brain.”   
  
“Of course,” Francis said. “Otherwise you’d remember the plans, wouldn’t you?”

Arthur nodded. Shifted in his seat. Sighed. “Right… I’ll go draw the bath while you get the wrap.”  
  
“All right.”

“Take your time.”

Francis turned and walked out of the room towards the first aid closet he kept fully stocked with wrenches, screws, skin cloning devices for extra grafts, sewing supplies, bandages, creams, painkillers, and various rubber products.

He pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the slot on the left wall of the closer, where all the supplies needing be replacement or cleaning went. As he shuffled through the supplies to the waterproof wraps on the back of the bottom shelf, he heard the water from the bathroom begin to run.  

He took a few moments to shift around the waterproofer, measuring out and cutting the amount he estimated he would need for Arthur’s temporary binding, and then a bit more, just in case he needed slack.   
  
He stood and picked up a fresh, wonderfully soft towel on his way back to the bathroom. The door was closed. Arthur had probably finished stripping already. It wasn’t as though they had lived together for almost twelve years now and seen each other naked multiple times in a variety of circumstances. Francis huffed as he shouldered the door open, beginning to set aside the towel and wrap as he said, “Arthur, are you always going to be a prude—”

He smelled burning plastic and skin. Screamed.   
  
Arthur’s body, heavy with mechanics, fizzed with electricity and steam as he sizzled in the water-filled tub. His hands spasmed. His chest where the skin and metal plating was open and where the damaged wires were was alight. Francis reached out, waterproofing still in his hands, and yanked Arthur out of the tub. The sparks subsided some but didn’t stop; flames were still sputtering out of his chest.   
  
Francis noticed the vague pain in his hands as though it were happening to someone far away. Instead, he bolted out to the bathroom sink and beat the emergency aid button under the counter. Somewhere, a siren went off.

He twisted on his ankle and dashed to the kitchen, grabbing the large bag of baking soda out of the main pantry. It was difficult to hold in his swelling hands, so he gathered it up in his arms and dashed back to the bathroom, ripping the bag open with his teeth and tossing puffs of baking soda into the still burning plate in Arthur’s chest.

The fire extinguished. Francis fell to his knees, coughing. He pressed two fingers to Arthur’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Searched with his eyes for a flicker of electronic beeping, signs Arthur hadn’t short circuited entirely. It was then that the emergency responders poured in the front door.

There weren’t any clocks in the apartment. Francis wasn’t sure exactly how long it had taken them to arrive, but it couldn’t have been more than a three minutes. He was jostled aside as the responders swarmed around Arthur, checking his lack-of-a-pulse and all those other things that Francis would have gotten around to if—

They wrapped Arthur in a clean sheet and slid him onto a stretcher, which Francis hadn’t seen out in the hall. The responders spoke into headsets and shouted orders at each other, moving like a strange sort of amoeba through the bathroom. Some photographed evidence, others slid Arthur’s body out of Francis’ vision, and one of them bent down in front of Francis, grabbed his hands and shouted to the others, “We have more burns over here! Get him into the ambulance with the other.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Francis said. His throat was sore from inhaling the baking soda.   
  
The responder hustled Francis onto his feet regardless and steered him out the door and into the ambulance’s spacious back area before Francis could even fully register what was happening.  
  
He had only just worked past Arthur electrocuting himself, and was only just beginning to take in the terrible stabbing pain in his hands where the waterproofing had only partly protected him from the powerful electric current, and where the swelled patches of skin had burst or torn in his endeavors to minimize the damage.

They reached the hospital in—time. Eventually. Francis didn’t look at the clock in the back of the ambulance. They were shuffled out and shuffled in, with Arthur being taken with hardly a glance at his ID. The doctors rushed Francis in right behind Arthur but abandoned him quickly when Francis once more insisted that he was fine. They had no time for uncooperative patients. Except Arthur. A stray nurse took it upon himself to properly fix Francis’ hands before shock fully set in. He sat in a small checkup room for two hours after his basic handling. His pain was vastly improved and his nerves would heal in a matter of days, so great was their fine Empire’s technology and medical prowess. All that was left to do was wait for Arthur to wake.

000

He was shuffled into Arthur’s room two hours before the anesthesia was supposed to lift. Revival from a death-experience was a tricky business. It was simpler when half of a body was mechanical, but trickier when that mechanical life support system was shut off. The medical center had, however, gotten quite experienced at isolating and preserving Arthur’s brain until full repairs could be made.   
  
Anesthesia simply helped make sure the revival didn’t end with the patient bolting upright, screaming or with silly ideas of a place after life.

Francis clicked through the wallwindow-decorations—a hologram of a forest covered an entire wall. It was replaced by a skyline at moonrise. Then, HD 69830’s sky at night on the ceiling and two walls. Several more options flashed by until he finally found the wall image he was looking for. A 220 degree view of Brittanic from water-level, where the Stack Systems were easily visible, raising the man-made continents out of the planet’s otherwise all-encompassing oceans. Hopefully it would give Arthur some comfort when he woke.  
  
Hopefully.   
  
Otherwise, Francis would be there with his mindwipe application form to be filled out and handed in within minutes of a problem. Excessive mindwiping tended to cause complications such as short term memory loss or a sort of creeping paranoia about the reality of one’s existence. It was said by those without history degrees that on Earth-That-Was, that troublemakers like Socrates and Descartes suffered from excessive mindwiping, with Socrates being poisoned after a rigged trial and Descartes’ corpse desecrated as a result of their attempts to convince the rest of the world that it was the  _universe_ which had gone mad, not  _him._

Francis would admit, he rather liked the mad philosophes. He had a soft spot for them. Perhaps their eccentric ways made them appealing to him, but he knew very well that whatever eccentricies they had, those eccentricies were not caused by mindwipes.  Francis knew mindwipes like the back of his hand, now. He had a whole stack of forms pre-signed by the head of the medical staff who oversaw Arthur each time he entered, specifically so he would no longer have to waste time actually applying for a wipe. He would merely submit the form at the door for processing and then proceed.

This was the third time Arthur had tried to kill himself. This was the third time Francis had helped excuse it as something else, bribing the doctors to stay silent and the records to be very gently, harmlessly altered. The doctors didn’t care for the  _why_ of accidents as long as their medical achievements were on file.

So the bullet through Arthur’s jaw last year was excused as part of a gun salute practice gone wrong. They had constructed a sort of wall around Arthur’s brain to ensure further accidents did not occur.Which was why the crushed neck from six months before was passed off as Arthur foolishly trying to lift weights without a proper spotter outside of a proper weight-lifting institution, and it was an accident when he dropped the 60lb barbell on his throat. His esophagus was replaced with a sturdier, similarly flexible tubular material and his spine gently reinforced with steel. The electrocution Francis planned to blame on himself— he would say that he hadn’t realized Arthur’s waterproofing was missing in one area and he hadn’t stopped Arthur’s attempt to bathe.  
  
Hopefully, it would not be the third time Francis applied for a mindwipe for Arthur after such an incident, but he had the slip and the pen anyway. He was ready if it didn’t appear as though Arthur was going to be helped by some other method.   
  
And Francis waited.   
  
He didn’t want to administer a wipe without knowing Arthur’s current mental state (when had he gotten so good at this?) so he sat, silently, flicking through the wall-window decorations to the Britannic image. He pointedly ignored the cumbersome bandages on his hands and the way the nurses were strapping Arthur down to his bed to prevent him from doing further damage to himself when he woke.

Even though it was already difficult to destroy a person whose skull had been largely replaced by adamite steel. It was dangerous and time consuming for the surgeons to fix Arthur’s body every few months.

Sometimes, Francis wondered why they didn’t just keep Arthur’s brain in a jar or permanently hooked up to the Angel if they were tired of dealing with his antics. Francis would never say that aloud, though. He wouldn’t want to give anyone ideas, oh no.

Sometimes Francis wondered if he had been more damaged in the accident than it appeared. Francis had never thought that way before—neither had Arthur. They had never had any reason to. The twisting sore inside their chests had only appeared with the Angel, and with the Angel it grew more and more painful.  
  
There were days when Francis wanted to rip his own chest open, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, except to Arthur.   
  
To an Empire with the Angel, Francis was disposable. To Arthur, he was something much more precious, and Francis had no way of knowing how much damage his death would do to his old rival.

He sat in Arthur’s room, quietly watching the muted shifting waves on the wall break against the Stacks of Britannic.

000

Arthur woke slowly. The world was covered in a fine layer of cotton. Of dust. Of fine sand, which never fell into his eyes but which seemed to float, steady, across his vision.

The realization that he was alive washed over him like a chilled blanket being settled over his frame. His face was clammy and his whole chest and arms were numb and cold, as though his bones were made of icicles instead of metal.

He could feel his molars crunching and the tightness in his neck, but could not summon up the will to do anything about it for what felt like a very long time as he lay in bed, staring at the pictures on the ceiling. They looked like home.

He hadn’t been home in years.

It was mostly that which made him turn his head. The very quiet, creeping want which slowly overwhelmed him—that he did not want to look at his home. His head twisted to his side. His molars still crunched and his neck was still as tense as a piano wire.

Francis was sitting beside the bed, a book in his lap.

Arthur waited for Francis to notice him. He was too damn tired to deal with the tangle of emotions which rose out of the simple presence of his best friend. There was an impulse—not quite a knee-jerk reaction—to scream at him. To sit up on the bed and lash out and bite his face off, screaming, “ _Why? Why?_ ”

He was too tired for that. And his arms were tired. The idea of thrashing against his bindings felt trite and overused, and for a reason he couldn’t quite place he thought,  _it’s not like it’s worked before_ , though he was quite certain this was the first time he’d woken strapped to a hospital bed.

There was another part of Arthur which wanted to reach out and curl into Francis’ lap, or have Francis crawl into bed beside him and curl around him like a human blanket to escape the stifling cold literally surrounding his heart. Francis would do it if Arthur asked. He knew Francis would, because after the first year when Arthur had gone through that horrible week when he started tearing up even at references to the Angel, Francis had done anything if Arthur asked which seemed doable.

But his arms were strapped down and his mouth was so, so dry that he just couldn’t bring himself to open his cracked lips.

Then, there was a part of him which was so fucking tired. All it wanted to do was go back to sleeping—which Arthur had done quite enough of—or cry.

His emotional gauntlet ran its course for less than a few seconds after seeing Francis, and, utterly outside of his conscious control, Arthur’s brain chose for him.

He took a brief look at Francis and dissolved into tears.

Francis set down the book without marking his place and surged to Arthur’s side, hand on Arthur’s shoulder, nose almost touching Arthur’s nose.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

_You’re a fucknut,_  Arthur thought, but he couldn’t muster the energy to say it aloud. He gnashed his teeth into the most savage expression he could with his half-numb face and hoped it sufficed. Francis didn’t respond except to press the remote to tilt the top half of Arthur’s bed so that Arthur was partly sitting up. Then, Francis gave him a glass of water.

It was strange how quickly his thoughts shifted to drinking as much as he could. His throat was so dry, and—and fuck, his hands were strapped to the bed. He drank as Francis pressed the glass to his lips, bearing the indignity if only just for something to sooth the pain in his throat. The clearest feeling in his body.

“The Senate doesn’t know you’re here. We told them you had an unfortunate accident with your waterproofing,” Francis said, removing the cup from Arthur’s lips. “It’s been fixed. If you feel numb, it’s because they’re still working on fixing your nervous system. You should still be able to feel through your sensors, though.”

As if to illustrate this, Francis took the time to reach down and pat Arthur’s partly mechanized leg. There was a small, cold jolt of sensation, but little else.

“’Wasn’t an accident,” Arthur said, trying to remember how to separate his tongue from the back of his teeth. It was as though each part of his body was heavy, clammy, and swollen.

“I know that and you know that, but they don’t have to,” Francis said. “More water?”   
  
With effort, Arthur shook his head. Francis set the cup down on the bedside table next to the book. Then, taking some tissues from the same table, he carefully leaned over to wipe the wetness of tears and spill from Arthur’s face.   
  
“Fuck off.”   
  
“Mmh.”   
  
“Fuck  _off,_ Francis, I don’t want to deal with you.”  
  
“You would rather deal with me than being totally helpless, trust me.”   
  
“God, would you listen to me when I actually want you to for once?” he said as Francis tossed away the tissues. His hands were wrapped in what appeared to be thick white gauzy bandages. Arthur’s train of thought derailed.  “What happened to your hands?”  
  
Francis raised an eyebrow and said, “I had to pull you out of the tub, imbecile.”

Arthur’s stomach—maybe not, though, his stomach was still flesh and numb—twisted. His throat constricted. “Sorry.”

“What did you think would happen? I would just leave you there?”  
  
“I just wanted—”

“— _I don’t want to hear it_.” Francis leaned in close once more, glaring. “As long as you don’t ever try something like this again, I don’t care all that much. But you are being a complete idiot right now and I don’t like it one bit. This isn’t like you. You know nothing will come out of this and it isn’t helping anyone.”   
  
“I’m  _slaughtering_ people!”   
  
“It was always our job to slaughter the rebels and you knew it even back when we were in the Academy,” Francis said, hissing. “What happens now is you do the best you can with what you want while still surviving. They aren’t going to decommission Angel just because you want them to.”

Arthur’s throat cracked again. “But that’s why I’ve got to—”

“You don’t’ have to do anything. The Angel isn’t your responsibility.”  
  
“It’s my head! How the fuck is that not my—”  
  
“It’s not part of you.”  
  
“Oh my fucking god. Can we not have this argument right now? For once?”

Francis looked like he was about to argue. His mouth opened and his eyebrows were still furrowed. Then, he leaned back and took a deep breath. The color in his cheeks slowly left. “All right.”

They sat together in horrible, uncomfortable silence as Arthur’s tears slowly dried and Francis dabbed at his face with tissues, occasionally quietly asking or responding to less loaded questions.

“…you’re sure the Senate doesn’t know.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“So Mum doesn’t know.”   
  
“She hasn’t a clue. Only that you had an accident with your waterproofing.”

Arthur shifted the way his neck was on the pillow. The images of Brittanic were still flickering across the walls. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the saltwater oceans, racing boats with his brothers and shoving each other off of the Stacks. But going home had been rendered, not impossible, but incredibly uncomfortable after the accident. His mother— like all heads of the most important families of each planet—like all Caers—was a member of the intergalactic Senate, representing their planet to the Consuls who then advised Their Great Lord Romulus, Body of the Empire, who served as Emperor after the death of his brother Remus, Long Live His Immortal Soul. It would be impossible for the Empire to create something like  _Arthur_ without his mother knowing.

Sometimes he wondered if she’d known as far back as his graduation.

“How do they not know if I’m on suicide watch?”   
  
“The doctors know. They won’t tell, but they still have you, written down as two different Arthurs, one electrocuted accidentally and one on suicide watch. Bribery is a wonderful skill passed down in my family for generations.”

An awkward smile from Francis. It faded when Arthur didn’t return it. Silence fell between them again for several minutes. They watched the waves on the wall shifting and breaking.

“So, now we have two options,” Francis said. Arthur looked up. Francis was holding two fingers. He folded them down as he spoke.

“We could mindwipe you to forget this ever happened and put you back to a while before you tried to electrocute yourself, but with me more preventative. Otherwise, we don’t mindwipe you. We wait and see how you do living with yourself for a while, talking things through and trying to figure out together how to stop this happening again. And the final call is mine—” Francis took a moment to wave what Arthur recognized as a mindwipe form. It was already signed, which struck Arthur as odd, but perhaps the doctors had advised Francis and given him the form as a way of pressuring him. That was an unpleasant thought. “—but since you seem reasonable for once, I’m asking your opinion. Please be flattered.”  
  
“I’m always flattered when you deign it appropriate to ask my opinion on what to do with my own body,” Arthur said, scowling, his tone forced flat with difficulty. Francis was the only one who seemed to ask anymore.

“So?”  
  
“You’ll never get me near one of those fucking machines,” Arthur said.

Francis quirked his eyebrows and smiled. “Of course not.” He tore up the form and tossed it into the waste basket with the tissues. “Better?”   
  
“Not really.”   
  
“Sorry.”   
  
“How long before they undo my restraints?”   
  
Francis’s smile flickered away. “Ah. Well. You see, they… tend to not like taking them off for quite some time, apparently… weeks, in some cases.”

Arthur tried to sit up in shock, but the most he could do was arch his back enough too quickly and make his vision blur. He must have disrupted a circuit. “ _Weeks?_  I’ll go insane.”

“I imagine when you’re called for Angel again, they’ll let you go and you won’t be brought back,” Francis said.   
  
There was a short pause. Then, “Francis, I’m not sure you quite understand what it’s like to be directly responsible for the deaths of several billion people across two galaxies, but that is the least reassuring thing you could have said. I’d rather be tied up for the rest of my life. I’d rather be  _dead_.”  
  
“I’ll stay with you,” Francis said, reaching out to cover Arthur’s hand with his own. “So if this lasts as long as you’re hoping, you won’t be bored at least.”   
  
Despite himself, Arthur formed a small smile. “I don’t want to be stuck with you my whole life without being able to smack you over the head when you deserve it.”  
  
“Kinky.”   
  
“Fuck off.”  
  
Francis grinned, catlike, and stretched. “I love you too, mon cher.”

“Fuck off with that weird language of yours too, creep. And—what will happen when visiting hours are over?”

Again, the grin fell away from Francis’ face. “Will you be all right alone?”   
  
Arthur thought he felt his heart sinking, but that was impossible. It was encased in metal and relatively immobile. “…give me the hospital rules.”

Francis pulled a thin gray stick, no longer than a cellphone form his pocket and unfolded it until it was as it was supposed to be, a thin blue screen stretched through the air, still attached to the gray stick. It felt as solid and smooth as glass, though it was simply a projection. They connected to the intranet and began searching through the government’s achieve of hospital policy. Francis scrolled the page obediently each time Arthur told him to, watching and apparently not understanding why Arthur was searching through the policy when they both knew quite well that guests were not permitted after visiting hours. It was one of the Empire’s many strictly enforced rules. It kept everything nicely regulated and safe.

“All right,” Arthur said. “I’m buying a whore.”  
  
Francis dropped his computer. The screen vanished with a whir.

“What?”   
  
“A whore,” Arthur said. “Guests are forbidden but exceptions can be given to business associates negotiating important transactions.”   
  
“Oh my God,” Francis said, covering his mouth and trying to speak through the sudden pearls of laughter. “Did you just—”   
  
Francis doubled over, clutching his stomach.  
  
“Francis. Francis stop it right now. I swear, if I could move my arms right now I would be kicking your ass so hard,” Arthur said, twisting against the bed. Francis lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. 

“What kind of whore?” Francis asked, grinning so widely Arthur thought his face may split apart. “One good with oral and riding, I suppose. Or do you want to give oral to them? I doubt they could get between your legs enough to fuck you right now…”

“Who said I wanted any of that?”   
  
“You requested a whore!” Francis said, cheerfully straightening up again and opening the computer, connecting back to the intranet and beginning to search through the database for an appropriate companion. “What about this one? He has nice eyes. Eight inches—ah. Well.”   
  
“Francis.”   
  
“Are we looking for a certain gender? They have a few different categories… that and hair, sizes, origins…”  
  
“Francis.”  
  
“—or do you not have something in particular in mind. We can use a randomizer. What?”   
  
Arthur sighed. “Uh… I’m… look let’s just pick one. …A male. Blond.”   
  
Francis nodded and flicked through the appropriate tags until finding the correct list. He enlarged the screen and began flicking through applicants as Arthur continued to shake his head with each image.   
  
“This one is cute,” Francis said, pausing at the picture of a sandy haired boy with blue eyes and glasses.  
  
“He looks like Peter in twenty years. No,” Arthur said. Francis snorted and flicked away the image.

“Well, apparently he has a brother.  _I_ think we should order both and I get the cute one and you can have this one.”

A new image flickered up through the DNA link. It was of a young man, also blond and with glasses, though his hair was longer and softer—greatly resembling Francis’, the more Arthur squinted—and his eyes were a darker blue, or perhaps a gentle brown or hazel. He was a bit taller and perhaps bulkier than what Arthur wanted, certainly with more babyfat still on his cheeks, but he would do.

“Maybe the brother,” Arthur said.   
  
“Really?” said Francis.   
  
“He’s from your planet, apparently.”   
  
“What?” Francis turned back to the screen, made a face, and then huffed. “They always use the wrong name…”   
  
“He looks a bit like you.”   
  
Francis turned his attention away from the computer screen, grinning at Arthur. “Will you miss me that much, Arthur?”  
  
“I can’t say I’ve ever missed you very much,” Arthur said, turning his nose in the air. “But I will consider him despite his obvious flaw of appearing physically similar to you.”

“You’re a terrible human who says terrible things, Arthur. My heart is bleeding.”   
  
When Arthur cursed him again, Francis did him the honor of smacking himself with the book he had been reading when Arthur woke, and for a while, Arthur forgot.

After visiting hours had ended and the prostitute had come, Arthur lay in bed, silent, trying to focus on the warm body curling around him and the quiet pieces of okay-ness from Francis’ attempts to distract him, instead of giving in to the crushing certainty that he would not be restrained in the hospital bed forever.

Soon, he would be a danger again.

000

“You didn’t mindwipe him this time,” Ludwig said, running a hand down Francis’ bare back. Francis lay beside Ludwig, naked, his ankles tangled in the bed sheets and one arm slung across Ludwig’s lap. He ran his tongue across each of his teeth, trying to be rid of the aftertaste of semen.  
  
“I didn’t. I’m hoping he will recover faster if he remembers what he trying to recover from.”

“And you, who are so overprotective, left him alone?”   
  
“Visiting hours had ended. We convinced the orderlies to let him have a whore to keep him company.”  
  
“A whore. Really.”  
  
Francis nodded. “I have as little an idea as you do. He miraculously does still have his couilles, though. If I were stuck in a hospital room, unable to move for a few days, I would want a good distraction as well.”

Ludwig snorted, eyeing Francis’ bandaged hands before taking them by the wrist and taking Francis’ left index finger into his mouth. “Can you feel this?”   
  
“No. They’re disrupting the signals from my nerves until the damage is healed.”   
  
“A pity. You’re better with your hands.”

Francis snorted and pulled his numbed hands away. “I would have thought you would get off on the idea of me being injured.”  
  
“I’m a doctor, not a sadist,” Ludwig said, rolling over to crouch on top of Francis, pushing him down into the bed, sliding his leg between Francis’ hips.

“There’s not that much of a difference.” Francis arched against Ludwig’s leg, rolling his hips against the taught muscle against his cock. He mewled. Indecent. Gorgeous. Submissive. His hair was a tangle over his face.

“If I were a sadist I’d be enjoying the panic you work yourself into over him,” Ludwig said. Francis paused his hips, still breathing deeply but frowning. “I just mean that you are both going crazy over nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing,” Francis said, not responding much when Ludwig nudged his crotch. “He’s in a very bad place right now. You of all people should know that, Docteur.”

  
Francis twisted and rolled away. Ludwig sat back, frowning as well.

“We changed his flesh, not his personality. He was already slotted to work as a strategist. This sort of reaction is beyond extreme. He’s practically been upgraded. He shouldn’t be causing as much of a fuss as he does.”

Francis sighed fighting the urge to lean against Ludwig’s arm and feel the warmth and muscle shifting and flexing against his back. He folded his hands.

“Listen,” Francis said, rubbing his face, wiping away his cooling sweat. “When Arthur and I were in Strategy together back in school, I would always win more battles, but Arthur would win the wars. When we weren’t doing purely theoretical strategies—when we fought against the simulator who mimicked all the dirty tricks the rebels used and civilians came into play—Arthur would lose everything, or only win by a thread. It wasn’t that he was stupid, he was just merciful. He left people alive. It always, always came back to bite him before the endgame. And now that element is removed by Angel. Of course he’s devastated. It’s not gone when he’s Arthur. He guilts.”  
  
“But you don’t?” Ludwig asked, grasping Francis’ thigh and slowly pulling Francis into his lap again “You don’t feel bad enough about the rebel scum to try and kill him.”  
  
“Of course not,” Francis said with a huff, falling back into the rhythm. Pushing his ill thoughts away. Settling into Ludwig’s lap, twisting around so that they were chest to chest. He arched his back and left small kisses on Ludwig’s jaw. “When—” a gasp, “—when  I was young on  _Louie_ , my little sister and I were in the woods. She brought me an injured rabbit. We didn’t know what to do, so—mh—we called our father, and he told us to beat it with a stone. Put it out of it’s misery.”   
  
“And did you?” Ludwig’s hands trailed down Francis’s ass. Quite suddenly, his fingers, still slick from the previous round, pressed into Francis’ hole.  
  
Arching, Francis shouted. “—Yes!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I hope that didn’t escalate too quickly)
> 
> (Also this is the suicide hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> Suicidio ayuda en Espanol : 1-888-628-9454 ) 
> 
> Notes!
> 
> Philosophes is French for “philosopher,” also possibly the first commonly used word for philosophers. Pronounced “fill-o-zwaff”
> 
> It was 'Gnome who brought the characterization of Arthur being suicidal to the table. I asked her advice on his awakening and… I hope I did it well. Because what I got from her explanation was that he wasn’t depressed in the traditional sense, but so guilt wracked that he felt it was better to die and spare lives he would have otherwise been told to kill. I don’t want it to be mistaken for depression, because this would be a gross misrepresentation of a serious mental illness as well as disregarding the various other documented reasons for suicide attempts, so I apologize if it bothered anyone.
> 
> In shachaai’s original idea, Francis relates the experience of hearing Arthur scream in pain to a dog who had broken its leg when he was younger. Francis’ father killed the dog to put it out of its misery. In this, obviously, the dog has become an injured rabbit who Francis kills himself. I understood the dog differently from her initial idea on my first read through but his is an intentional chance, and… I chose a rabbit because… uh… I was actually told to put a rabbit out of its misery with a hammer, once.
> 
> (Fun facts: Because I’m unsure about how reliable real cultivation would be in the empire, we’re going to say that all the books are either electronic or made of repurposed trash waste.)


	3. The Flames Begin - Paramore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew knows exactly what his job is, and it is not his job to cuddle some high ranking military officer strapped to a hospital bed.
> 
> Warnings For This Part: Hospitals. Restraints. Regulated prostitution. Some sexual content.

Mona called Matthew into her small, ovular office a day or two after the biennial party. Requests for their services trickled in slowly. They received one every few days or so, but with both Alfred and Matthew of them sharing expenses and the rank of the people they were servicing, they could have each accepted one customer per week and still lived quite comfortably. For their real job, though—they accepted as many clients as they could handle.

Their manager, Mona was a pale, slender woman, originally from  _Louie_ , and a defector. She had her home planet's distinctive soft hair which began curling around her nape—apparently it was what Matthew's own hair was styled as. Mona's hair was long and blond, braided down and tied on one side with a bright red ribbon. She once told Matthew that on Louie, silk ribbons were a sign of status.

"Mine was a gift," she said. "But it represents the sort of woman I always wanted to be."

"A princess?" Alfred had vouched, grinning and head cocked to the side.

"A respected, reliable woman," Mona had replied. "What is a 'princess'?"

There wasn't much more she needed to do to become the archetype of a reliable, respectable woman, in Matthew's opinion. He walked into her office completely reassured that there were no bugs or spies. Her loyalty to the rebellion was unquestioned. Her ability to navigate the heart of the empire was invaluable. She had been proven over and over, every time Matthew or Alfred took a customer and came back alive and whole.

"You have a client," Mona said, her face serious and flat. Her red silk bow was spread and starched, but her lipstick was smeared just so, as though she had done it in a rush and hadn't the time to fix it. Her dress was magenta and pressed. Her glasses were square. Her office was plain, with two simple oil landscape paintings hanging on the gray walls, which but mimicked wood plank despite being, like most of the Empire, metal. "The highest up so far."

"Really?" Matthew said. Mona slid the manila folder across her organized desk towards him. He opened it and gazed down at the photograph of a green-eyed man in a red military uniform. He glanced down the page, skimming but not entirely taking it in until he noticed the list of medals and awards received. "Holy shit."

Mona nodded, weaving her fingers together in front of her. "He's a very important figure in the military. How, we're not entirely sure. Everything beyond his basic profile is classified."

Matthew flipped through all of the three pages within the folder. Indeed, all except the very first page were covered in 'classified' or 'redacted' sections.

"I talked to Eduard a few minutes ago about him. He is on every VIP list to every party in the Empire, but he only attends the odd one or two. Usually the biennial and the Emperor's birthday party, which are almost mandatory once you're at a certain rank. The last events we have reliable information about him are his midterms three and a half years ago at the Academy."

"Everything else since then is classified?"

"We didn't get an address." Mona continued as though she hadn't heard Matthew. "He sent a meeting point where you will be picked up by escorts and then taken to wherever it is he is staying right now."

Matthew set the papers down. "So, what am I supposed to assume?"

"I don't know," Mona said, "there aren't any records of his hiring a companion before, and we don't have the time to ask around to see if any of the managers remember sending someone to him. At this point, just be extremely alert. Do exactly what he wants, moreso than usual, unless you are  _certain_ there's something that would help you out. We don't know if he will ever invite us back."

"So do look around a bit?"

"If you find a good opportunity, yes," Mona said. For the first time, Matthew noticed her hands had at some point unwoven and turned to clenched fists on the desk's top. "But I also want you to be extremely careful."

"Of course," Matthew said, quickly standing and reaching over the desk to pull Mona into a hug. Her shoulders were immobile and her spine straight as a column. "I've got you looking after me. I trust you. Nothing could go wrong."

000

At first, Matthew assumed he would be taken to some kind of top secret Empire apartment in the center cluster of the highest of Pompeii's many skyscrapers, where every flat was a quarter mile wide and completely soundproofed from the other floors.

Instead, he was in a nearly-vacant hospital lobby, watching another man with  _Louie_ 's distinctive curling hair argue with a nurse about whether or not prostitutes constituted important business partners.

Matthew just stood back and watched. All of the heavily armed guards around him seemed to breathe a collective, exhausted sigh as they watched the nurse and the blond military man go at it—the military man's coat was heavily decorated, Matthew noticed, though it wasn't standard issue. He was pale, and the bright red and cold fastenings clashed against his skin and made him stand out extraordinarily against the cool colors of the hospital walls—and wondered how many of these guards would have traded this for a life with the rebellion. If they would have rather been standing in a rocky waste of a moon, searching through shrapnel craters, rather than pretending to stand at attention in this hospital, with its slate flooring and small boxes of brightly colored artificial flowers. Perhaps not many, but these guards might have considered it longer than the other residents of Pompeii. These soldiers were the ones who had grown up inside the Empire and worked their way up the ladder to prosperity.

If Matthew hadn't spent his childhood clinging to his mother and father, going from ship to ship and moon to moon, he might have done something like taking a career as a soldier as well. Alfred would have, certainly. But being born beyond the current boundary lines was too big a crime to atone for.

He jolted when the guards nudged him forward once more. The guard to his right muttered a helpful, "You're all clear, now," in his ear.

The elevator they took sped them directly to the 30th floor, the top of the hospital, where high risk patients were kept right next to the landing pad.

The hall was empty of patients except for a single occupied room near the center of the hall, with yet more guards posted outside. The blond military man leading their group swept by without a word while the guards halted Matthew outside the door.

Matthew wiped his sweating palms against his pants discretely. He could hear mumbling from within the hospital room, but was unable to make it out.

A minute or two later, the blond military man reappeared and headed straight for Matthew. Up close, he was undeniably handsome, but with dark circles under his eyes and a tightness to his jaw that Matthew hadn't noticed previously.

"He's in there. Call him Arthur. Do everything he says exactly, understand?" the blond military man said.

Matthew nodded. "Of course, sir."

He was escorted into the room.

The walls were electronic and turned on, covering more than half of the room in moving images of the rolling oceans of some planet Matthew wasn't able to recognize. Wide, shadowy constructs rose up out of the ocean. Compared to the size of the waves crashing against them, the constructs appeared massive. It took Matthew a moment to accept that there was no sound accompanying the images, and that they were certainly not really present in the room.

The door to the room snapped shut. Pulling himself away from his distraction and hoping he hadn't just given a bad first impression, Matthew scanned the room for 'Arthur.'

Matthew found Arthur strapped down to the hospital cot, the only other figure in the room, immobilized and scowling. His gown was more like an unattractive full body suit. His eyebrows were like furry bricks.

There must have been some sort of mistake.

But. He looked like the man in the file. Matthew tried to recall the photograph accompanying the biographical data—it must have been him.

But. Matthew's eyes darted over the restraints.

"Arthur, sir?" he said.

"Just Arthur," the man on the bed said. "You're the whore?"

"I am," Matthew said, not letting the word bother him. He had learned that words which didn't apply to him didn't hurt if he didn't apply them himself, even if others thought they should. He swayed his hips and strolled to the bedside, sinuous and curious.

"Up on the bed, then," Arthur said, apparently trying to shift and make himself comfortable despite the straps holding him in place. Careful to not crush any of his limbs, Matthew climbed up onto the bed and straddled Arthur's legs. Arthur shifted as much as he could below Matthew, and appeared to have become comfortable. Matthew leaned forward to kiss him.

Matthew wasn't entirely sure what Arthur shouted, but it left Matthew's ears ringing and he shuffled backwards as fast as he could.

Arthur was still shouting in a heavy accent. Scolding him? The door burst open and the blond military man had returned—the hospital rooms must not have been soundproofed like most apartments were—and Arthur's cursing became distracted.

"What the fuck is going on?" the blond military man in the door said.

"Nothing's going on! Get out, you bloody pig! I'm sick of your face again already!"

"Such pretty words," the man in the door said. "Now where's the blood? It sounded like someone had attacked what's left of your poor couilles."

Matthew recognized that word from the class he'd taken on  _Louie_ 's native slang. At least he had confirmed that Arthur had a handler from  _Louie_ , though he didn't appear to be a native himself. Not that they could really be called 'natives' if the Empire had taken Louie like they had taken Matthew's birth moon, but he didn't know enough of the Empire's history to say for sure. Instead, he just hunched down a little lower on the bed and tried to stay out of the way of the two men arguing over his head.

Finally, the shouting ceased and the door snapped shut once more. Matthew kept his head down, his heart pounding, his mind whirling to try and figure out what had caused the outburst.

"…my apologies," Arthur said after what felt like long minutes of silence. Arthur grumbled and cleared his throat. Matthew's head snapped up. "I should have been more precise about what I wanted you for."

"Yes?" Matthew said. Arthur paused for another few moments.

"I, ah… as you can see, I'm a bit… tied up at the moment, and it was going to a rather uncomfortable night, so I called you to ah. Well. Be held, I suppose. The skin contact is rather nice and very warm; I get cold easily you see, and blankets only help so much, so …"

The officer trailed off, mumbling quietly until finally he wasn't even mumbling anymore.

"A hug," Matthew said. "You called me in to give you a hug?"

The officer's face had turned as red as Mona's ribbon.

Trying hard to not sigh, crack a smile, or snigger, Matthew readjusted his position on Arthur's legs and leaned down to wrap his arms around the bound man beneath him. Arthur relaxed. At least, his shoulders relaxed and his breathing steadied, his face became less red, but half of his body stayed as tense as though he were part rock. His skin was cool, as though he had been resting in cold water for a long time. "Do you want my clothes off?"

"No," Arthur said, tucking his face into Matthew's shoulder. An unpleasant shudder ran up Matthew's spine. "Just lay there until I tell you to get up."

"Of course, sir," Matthew said.

Matthew waited all night to be told to get up.

000

After visiting hours had ended and the prostitute had come, Arthur lay in bed, silent, trying to focus on the warm body curling around him and the quiet pieces of okay-ness from Francis' attempts to distract him, instead of giving in to the crushing certainty that he would not be restrained in the hospital bed forever.

000

A ride bound for the proper apartment complex was waiting outside the hospital for Matthew the following morning before he even woke. The nurses had come to check on their patient multiple times during the night. After the checkups, barring two short bathroom breaks, Matthew returned immediately to carefully cuddling Arthur.

In the morning, the nurses returned again to feed his client. The blond man from the previous night was there with them, entering for the beginning of visiting hours. Matthew learned his name was Bonnefoy. Bonnefoy sent Matthew out of the hospital with reassurances that the proper fees had been successfully delivered to his manager, and Matthew was escorted to his home.

Alfred met him at their apartment's door, still messy with bed head and last night's makeup.

"So," Alfred said from across the glass table in the kitchen, sliding Matthew a plate of fruit still attached to the skin, sliced like a checkerboard. Mango. When did they make the kind of money to afford mango? They were only grown in certain designated greenhouses. How much money could they send to the rebellion if a pathway opened up? "How did your all-nighter go?"

"Weird as fuck," Matthew said, taking a careful bite out of the mango. It was incredibly sweet. He tried his best to stop melting from the inside out. There was nothing better after a long night of sleeping on an uncomfortable body than waking up to mango, he decided. "He was at a hospital, strapped down to the bed, and we didn't even fuck."

He ate the mango a bit more quickly, peeling the succulent inner fruit from the skin. It was a nearly complete skin. Round and sticky, and cleanly cut.

"What did he have you do? Dance or something?" Alfred said, reaching over to steal a bit of the mango. Matthew didn't stop him; he was busy wiping away stray juice.

"Nope. Nothing like that."

"What, then?"

"He asked me to get on top of him…"

"Uh-huh."

"Press myself against him…"

"Is this gonna be gross?"

"Wrap my arms around him…"

"Yeah?"

"And that's it."

Alfred paused with another bite of mango being halfway chewed. "That's it?"

"That's it," Matthew said, finishing one of the slices entirely, leaving the skin lying on the plate like a damp rag. "His keeper brought me into the hospital, argued me past the nurses, bent rules to keep me all night long, had guards posted outside the doors, paid exorbitant amounts, and I snuggled that dude all night long."

Alfred stared at him. He swallowed his piece of mango. Blinked and stared some more. "Is that really all?"

"That's literally everything. I kissed him and he threw a hissy fit."

Alfred took a deep breath and put both his arms on the table, leaning forward. "I think this is a big thing, Matt. I'm serious. We can draw a lot of major conclusions from event."

Matthew looked up, frowning. "We can?"

Alfred nodded, his face serious and grim. "Definitely. I think you've just handed me the most important information we have ever gathered during out time in the Empire."

Matthew leaned forward, eyebrows furrowed, his mind racing through what was just said and trying to find the connection that Alfred had.

"Mattie, what we have learned…" Alfred said. "…is that you give really good hugs."

Matthew threw the mango skin at Alfred's face.

000

"You've been requested again," Mona told Matthew as he came out of the shower, his hair heavy with water and his towel busy drying his shoulders instead of being wrapped around his waist. It was amazing what being a companion could do to one's confidence in their nudity.

"Who is it this time?" he asked, setting the towel aside and beginning to pull his undergarments on.

"The same as yesterday," Mona replied. "Mr. Kirkland."

Matthew paused with his underwear midway up his thighs. "Again?"

"You must have made quite the impression," Mona said. She readjusted her glasses and set the file down beside Matthew's clothes pile. "This is his file again if you need to look over it more."

"There's nothing interesting about him so far, aside from how weird he is. I was expecting the higher ups to be… well. I didn't expect any of them to be like him. I mean, they've strapped him to a bed. He hires whores to give hugs. If they're all like that, it'll be weird as all hell. I don't think I need to look at the file again."

Mona nodded, tried to hide her snort, and left him to dress.

000

Arthur was, once again, strapped to the bed when Matthew arrived in the hospital room. Once again, he lay on top of the officer, cuddling him all night.

It went on the same way for three more nights; Matthew arrived at the hospital escorted by guards, hugged the cold, bound body all night long, and was escorted out again in the morning.

After a week of it, Matthew was more than satisfied with the lack of new information.

"This is a waste of time," he said, storming into Mona's ovular office after his fifth consecutive night spent in the hospital. "He's been strapped to the hospital bed the whole time. He doesn't do anything. Just lies there.  _I_ just lie there, hugging him all night. We don't talk unless I'm reading him a book and there's nothing in the room for me to look through while he's asleep."

"Alfred has been no better off," Mona said, lifting her eyes from the papers on her desk. She had rings under her eyes and a blue button up that day. "None of his clients have yielded anything useful lately, either."

"But at least he can imagine that the next time something happens, it could be useful," Matthew said. "I just get to know for certain that it's useless. Arthur's probably retired from some obsolete secret mission or violent battle and that's how he got all those medals. Why do I have to keep seeing him?"

"You will see him until he asks for someone different. He requisitioned you for private use and the Empire approved it immediately; there's nothing I can do unless he releases you."

"That is so stupid."

"Just relax," Mona said. "Right now, your priority is maintaining your cover. He'll see you frequently over long periods of time. That's far more dangerous than sporadic meetings with half drunk officials. Just keep as close to your cover as possible and seem ecstatic to be making so much money for so little work. Alfred will take more customers on and make up for what we've lost with this."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Matthew said, sliding into the chair in front of Mona's desk and rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands.

"It's not my job to make you feel good," Mona said. Her voice dropped low. It almost helped sooth Matthew's frazzled nerves. "But I will get you both out of here safely with information to help the rebellion. This is a setback, certainly, but we will still succeed. I assure you of that."

Matthew took a deep breath. It rattled on the way down. He took his hands down from his face. "I'm sorry, Mona," he said. "I'm just really tired of this."

She smiled. "Don't worry about it. It's my job to keep your head cool. Don't you trust me?"

Matthew smiled weakly and nodded. "I trust you."

000

On the sixth day, they received word of an Angel Assault.

It was on a planet called Borion. The state of Sutrus. A large swathe of habitable land had been pelted with poisonous gas. The ground had been salted. The bodies of the dead were piled high as mountains, said the report. Empire and Rebel alike lay bloated and yellow from the fumes.

The height of mountains was relative, but Matthew imagined body upon uniformed body stacked up like dirty laundry, stretching from the ground up, up, up to the stars so high that the top of the pile couldn't have been visible. He imagined the muddy fields of Borion filled with the stray shoes of the soldiers whose feet got stuck. The shoes of those who had the strength to pull free, and had their boots pop off. How many had been lying in the mud, groping through the dirt, when the gas had come down? How many had realized they were in the midst of a slaughter? How many didn't realize they were dying before it was done with?

It was in the middle of these thoughts when the order came to go to his client.

Client in singular.

Just a few minutes before the Angel Assault report had arrived, Matthew had received the official notice by electronic mail that he had indeed been permanently written down as a personal whore, and there was nothing short of taking legal action to do about it. His ID card had changed. His image was removed from the companion catalogue.

Matthew set down the report, hidden in a plain folder only subtly marked in differences and slid down between the crevices of a cabinet—for physical paper left much less of a trail than electronics—and went, despairing, to his fate and climbed into the escort taxi waiting for him outside of the apartment building.

Dressed and made up, and halfway to his destination, his escort took a wrong turn.

"Are we supposed to be going this way?" Matthew asked after a moment, hoping that he allowed enough time to still appear like the bubble-headed doofus he and Alfred were supposed to be.

"Yes, Sir," the driver said, not taking her eyes off the road. "You're slotted to go to the inner city apartments. That's this direction."

"I thought I was supposed to go to the hospital."

"Those are not the directions I received," said the driver, and she left it at that. Matthew spent the rest of the ride quietly watching the scenery out the window and hoping someone hadn't made a grave mistake which would cause him to be late to an appointment. At this stage in his career, even a doomed career as a personal whore, lateness was unacceptable.

He fretted at the driver the whole way to the inner city apartments.

They were tall, imposing structures of stone and steel, the military apartments. There were granite gargoyles on the corners polished to a sheen, and rooftop fountains sent down a gentle dribble of clean drinking water—a monstrous waste of clean water, but it was vaporized by a heat shield which protected the streets from the wet, which supposedly put the water back into the atmosphere, but Matthew remained skeptical. He had never learned much science in the midst of the rebellion, but in his personal opinion, vaporizing water was no way to make it rain. He tried to remain composed as the driver set him down outside the wrong building, telling him to walk up to the 5th apartment at the very top of the 10 story building. He was escorted up the elevator by two guards, who rode with him all the way to the top floors, and knocked on the door there for him.

"Mr. Bonnefoy, the companion you sent for has arrived," the knocking guard in front of Matthew said. The other stood behind Matthew, leaning back,  _probably checking out my butt_ , Matthew thought, but it was quickly lost in the whirling thoughts from his unease.

The man who opened the door, Bonnefoy, was the same military man from  _Louie_  who had met Matthew during each of his visits to the hospital. Matthew's shoulders slumped down, the tension draining out of them as he realized that at the very least, he had been taken to at least somewhat of the right place.

Bonnefoy led Matthew inside the apartment, which was spacious, clean, and color coordinated. At least one of the walls was a built in holographic screen and displayed a moving image of the same watery gray planets had always been present in the hospital room. The active display wall was the only wall not blocked by plush three plush chairs, a couch, stray pillows littering the floor, and a long, thin bookcase with a vase full of artificial flowers. The floor was wooden—a marvel so far into the heart of the Empire, but probably a comfort for one so far from their home as a citizen of  _Louie_ —and covered partly with a large woven red carpet covered in intricate designs. There was a glass bar near what appeared to be the doorway to the kitchen, and down a cream carpeted hall, two more rooms across from each other with their doors firmly closed.

Bonnefoy closed the door to the elevator hall behind them. The guards must have been standing watch outside the door, for there was no sound to indicate the elevator had opened again.

"He is in the back room," said Bonnefoy, taking Matthew's elbow and leading him down the hall. "You'll be staying longer this time since you arrived earlier. I will bring you both some dinner in a short while. For now, just do as he tells you."

Matthew nodded and said a soft, "Of course, sir," as Bonnefoy stepped away. A little confused at the sudden change in approach, Matthew slowly reached up to knock. Instead of being told to just go in or having Bonnefoy open it for him, the door opened from within.

Arthur stood there on the other side of the door, wrapped in a thick jacket and free from restraints for the first time since Matthew had ever known him.

"Ah, good, you're here," said Arthur. He shuffled backwards into the room to let Matthew in, his gait nothing like the military gait Bonnefoy still had traces of. He seemed to be having trouble moving and standing still. He leaned on

The door closed behind him again. Arthur's room was—not small, but certainly not as spacious as Matthew had imagined. It was larger than the hospital room, but most of the room was taken up by the large bed and multiple bookshelves lining the walls. There were stacks of books on the floor and the desk in the corner and on top of the filing cabinets. There were books on cooking and handcrafts, textbooks on strategy and bioengineering, a book of advertisements for robots and two travelogues, one on Louie's tourable farms and another on the Stacks of Brittanic. As Matthew glanced at the cover of the second travelogue—on the floor, spread open, its spine somewhat bent—he finally recognized the planet depicted on the wall of the hospital and the apartment's living room.

"Sorry about the mess," said Arthur. He was sitting on the bed, stripping off his jacket before slowly pulling his legs up and crawling along the bed. His movements were jerky and stiff. From spending so much time strapped to a bed, Matthew imagined. "Come up."

Matthew followed Arthur onto the bed, kicking off his shoes and laying next to Arthur. They climbed under the blankets and Matthew wrapped himself around Arthur, struggling to adjust to having the body beneath him be moving independently again. Arthur reached out to a small dial on the wall and twisted it until it read 4 in large, grenn letters. The bedsheets beneath them began to heat.

"Are you recovering then, sir?"

Arthur nodded, nose in Matthew's chest. His unruly hair itched Matthew's chin. "I initially brought you in for company. You're fortunate I've grown fond of you enough to bring you home."

"Thank you, sir," said Matthew. He smiled and tried to push down the learned instinct to give a quick kiss. His insides churned, anxious with the sudden possibility of new information.

There were so many files he could look through once Arthur fell asleep if Matthew could manage to slip out of his embrace in the night.

"This is so much better with my arms," Arthur mumbled into Matthew's chest, "Mrph."

"Have you been recovering well then, sir?"

"I was fine the whole time," said Arthur. "The doctors were being overprotective."

"Oh," said Matthew. "Why were you in, then?"

"Just a little accident."

"Mmh, I see," said Matthew, not seeing at all and still trying to figure out the part he was supposed to play. He pressed his cheek against Kirkland's forehead and ignored the breath on his collar bone. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," said Arthur.

"All right," said Matthew. He lay still, wondering if he was supposed to coddle Kirkland or not.

They lay there for some time, not speaking, until Bonnefoy reappeared with the dinner tray. There were two plates, both with a small game bird covered in sauce, lemons and slices of fruit. Beside the plates were two glasses and three glass bottles of various sizes.

"Pace yourself, for my sanity, okay?" said Bonnefoy, setting the tray on the bedside tables. "And don't make a mess of yourself in bed. I just changed the sheets the other day."

"Where the hell did you get this?" said Arthur, pointing at the game. Matthew was staring as well. Birds were difficult to raise in environments like Pompeii, especially in the area of Rome or the planet of Italia at all.

"It was a gift from Maman," said Francis, wiping his hands on his hips now that he was no longer holding the tray. "A congratulations for getting out of the hospital again."

Arthur scowled. "Tell your maman that she's a right git sometimes."

"I'll pass it along," said Francis. "Now really. Don't make a mess of the bed. I'll check in on you in a few hours. Remember that the walls are not soundproofed and I would like to get to sleep sometime soon."

With that, Bonnefoy turned and left before Arthur could even finish his shout of, "But we're not going to do that!" and Matthew was left alone with Arthur again.

Arthur sighed and passed Matthew the plate with more bird and sauce before taking his own, which had more fruit and vegetables. He passed a large cloth napkin as well, which Matthew lay over his lap and underneath the dish. Then he received his silverware, and his cup, which he set on a decorated coaster. Matthew watched as Arthur then turned to the bottles—the largest was filled with water, which he passed over to Matthew. The smallest was dark brown with a label, and Arthur set it aside. The third was alcoholic, and Arthur stared at it for a long while before looking back up at the door.

"Francis?" he called. He waited a moment, and then called a little louder. "Francis, I know the walls are not soundproofed and you can hear me. Francis."

A few moments later, Bonnefoy reappeared at the door, leaning on the frame. "What is it?"

Arthur cringed just a bit. "Can I have another?"

Bonnefoy raised his eyebrow. "How many bottles do you think you can handle, exactly?"

"No, not that. I meant. A different one. I don't know how man we have, I just… this one really doesn't seem appetizing right now."

"It's the best for this sort of dish," said Bonnefoy.

"I'm sure it is," said Arthur. A few long moments passed before Bonnefoy again walked over to the bedside and took the bottle from Arthur.

"Only because your legs are still twigs," Bonnefoy said with a sigh which implied he would have given Arthur a different alcohol, shaky-legged or not, but he might have made Arthur walk for it. "You aren't getting my bourbon."

"I just want something that will settle easier."

"I'll find you something," said Bonnefoy. Then he left. He returned again with two more bottles, smaller than the first. Arthur chose one and Bonnefoy left with the second and did not return again.

Arthur poured his alcohol and drank.

Matthew waited for Arthur to take the first bite of food. He planned to eat in relative silence, but realized a line of conversation had been presented the moment he put the first cut of chicken in his mouth. An unfortunate trait he shared with his half-brother—there were times when his mouth moved faster than his brain.

"Owhmigod, thisis good," said Matthew midway through the bite. A moment too late, he covered his mouth and turned bright red at the slip. A bubble of red sauce escaped his mouth. Beside him, Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"You aren't the one who's had to eat hospital food for the last few days," said Arthur. He plucked up a piece of the fruit and popped it into his mouth like a candy. He swallowed again before resuming speaking. "First class hospital my arse, their food is still atrocious. But yes, Francis could break a heart with his cooking. Don't tell him I said that, he'll be entirely too smug."

"I didn't realize military men were taught to cook," said Matthew, wiping the sauce away quickly and cuddling up to Arthur once more. His eyelashes fluttered on instinct. Arthur didn't seem to notice, being too preoccupied with clearing his throat.

"Ah, yes, well. His mother was determined the Academy wouldn't train all the hick out of him."

"'Hick'?" said Matthew.

"Yes," said Arthur. "I'm sure you've heard it often enough as well?" Arthur set down his fork long enough to touch Matthew's hair. Matthew nearly flinched away, not because he wasn't used to his hair being touched by clients by that point, but because—well—Arthur had never done it. He was so used to the silent Arthur strapped down to the bed; to be upright sitting next to him, eating and talking, was like meeting an entirely new client all over again when he had been expecting someone old and used. It took him entirely too long to remember he and Bonnefoy were supposed to be Louians, home to the same remote core planet. "After our third year together he had mostly put a stop to it. Roasted one too many of the Arielites in class. The ones from Ariel were usually the worst, anyway. There were a few others. But I suppose a rivalry is somewhat natural between planets that are so opposite…"

"You've been with Mr. Bonnefoy for a long time, then," said Matthew. Arthur nodded and swallowed another bite.

"We have," said Arthur. "You have a confidentiality policy, don't you?"

"Of course, sir," said Matthew. "While the Companion's Industry has no control over the taps and the like in electronics, if anything happens in the bedroom and becomes public, you can be certain it was not us. We take rule-breakers  _very_  seriously."

The bedroom also consisted of the rooms shared between Companions and their managers. Not for the first time, Matthew was silently thankful he was able to trust Mona.

Arthur nodded and remained silent.

"We signed the confidentiality papers already, Sir," Matthew said. "When you hired me."

"I know. Francis signed them for me. I couldn't move my arms." Arthur chuckled from somewhere deep in his gut. Matthew found the sound not particularly humorous, but he nibbled respectfully on his meal while Arthur spoke, slowly falling back into the groove of Companion. "It's just, we were promised such prestige when we graduated. We used to say how we would compare how many people groveled at our feet. Nowadays, I don't think I could get anyone besides Francis to listen to me for more than a few minutes, even on something as trivial as not wanting to drink an alcohol."

"I see." Matthew cooed, setting his silverware down and moving to rub Arthur's back comfortingly.

Instantly, Arthur twisted and slapped Matthew's hand away.

"Ow!"

" _Don't._ "

Matthew stilled

Arthur stilled. He glared at Matthew. The dinner plates fell partway off their laps.

For a long few seconds, Arthur glared while Matthew cringed, wondering what he had done this time.

Then, "What the fuck is going on?"

Bonnefoy was once again in the doorframe.

"Nothing's wrong," said Arthur, slowly lowering his shoulders. "My back pain acting up. That's all."

"I'm sorry if I caused you pain, Sir," Matthew said immediately. "I should have been more careful. Especially since you were just out of the hospital. Please excuse my foolishness."

"It's fine, just don't touch my back again without my permission," said Arthur. He turned to Bonnefoy. "We have it under control."

Bonnefoy frowned but nodded. "Try to keep it that way for a little while longer. I'm trying to clean up the kitchen."

"I'm sorry, Sir," said Matthew, not sure which man he should address his words to. "It won't happen again."

Bonnefoy was already leaving.

Matthew lay back against the headboard once more. He quietly continued to eat his chicken and listen to Arthur tell stories about Bonnefoy being an 'overprotective ninny,' while the creeping realization came that Matthew would not be able to safely look through the papers while Bonnefoy was in the house.

000

Francis' mother had taught him to began all his negotiations by asking himself certain questions. Most of those questions boiled down some combination of two lists:

Relationship? Content? Pattern?

and

Head? Heart? Gut? Groin?

With Ludwig, it was frequently a Groin negotiation.

"Ludwig?" Francis said, speaking into the voice transmitter of the call. He had enabled the video/speaker function, though neither he nor Ludwig were in actual view of the cam. "Could you do me a favor?"

"It depends on the favor," Ludwig said. He was off-camera cleaning his office as they spoke, much like Francis was tidying up the kitchen. It was one of the privileges of being a high-access military member and Academia graduate. The privacy to clean your own home. Francis loaded all the dishes into the washer and ran his finger around the edge of the marble counter.  _Only my hands touch here._  It was quiet thought.

"I want portable cameras," said Francis. "Please?"

Ludwig's hulking form shuffled into the display. Francis watched him through his periphery, but did not join him visibly on the cam. "Why would you want those? We already have the built in ones in the computers."

"I want some offline cameras," said Francis, finishing placing the last of the dirty dishes in the washer. He closed the washer door and heard the activation click and the water rushing in. "Disconnected from the Empire's mainframe, you know?"

Out of his periphery, Francis saw Ludwig stiffen at the thought of such treason. Such a cockup. Francis quietly cleared his voice and changed his register, carefully schooling his face and ruffling his hair into dishevelment.

"I don't mean to do anything  _bad_ , Ludwig," Francis said, unbuttoning his shirt just a little further before sliding into the view of the cam. Ludwig stiffened once more. "I just, well. You know of my little  _problem._ "

He slumped, bent his knees, lidded his eyes.

"I'd love to see myself with you, though. I just don't want to mess up you and Feliciano. Comprendez-vous?

Ludwig coughed and straightened his tie. "Bonnefoy, now is not the time."

"Mh. Is your camera recording?"

Ludwig shook his head.

"Then why isn't this the time?" said Francis.

"I'm cleaning," said Ludwig. "I'm busy. I cannot afford to be distracted with you right now."

"Will you get me the cameras, though?" said Francis. He ran a hand down his front and massaged his groin through his pants. "I promise, I'll send you copies if you want to have me whenever you're  _not_  busy. You can add them to that pornography collection you stole from Honda."

Ludwig's face was a lovely shade of Embarassed. His eyebrows were creased in his moral struggle. His cheeks puffed out. It was wonderful to be responsible for such internal conflict.

"I did not steal anything from Honda."

"I know," Francis said. "I was joking. I'm sorry I upset you. I'll make it up to you if you let me." He smiled. All teeth. A little tongue. Feliciano was sweet and had never had sex with Ludwig, despite their long courtship. That was Feliciano's failure: leaving Ludwig vulnerable to promises of bodily fulfillment from others. Great Lord Romulus' grandson or not, the boy had to learn to rely on something other than reputation eventually, even if Ludwig  _had_  apparently gone to lengths to recieve their Great Lord's consent to date his grandson.

"It's fine," said Ludwig, sighing and squeezing his eyes closed. He rubbed his face.

"You look tired," Francis said, his voice low and soft. "Have you been taking care of yourself?"

"Of course I have," said Ludwig.

"You haven't been overworking again, have you?"

"Francis, that is absolutely none of your concern," said Ludwig.

Francis crossed his arms and frowned—grimaced—pouted until Ludwig fell silent. "I'm going to come over to your house this coming weekend."

Ludwig sighed. He would wrinkle even before Francis did. "Feliciano is staying with me this month. He insisted."

"Does he sleep in your bed?" said Francis.

"No," said Ludwig. "Of course not. That would be indecent."

"Then I will come over late," said Francis.

"Wouldn't a hotel—"

Francis's stare cut him off. "Ludwig. Dear. Please. The receptionist wouldn't even have to be offered money to report that we'd stayed in the same hotel while your Feliciano was home alone. He sleeps like the dead. You need to stop worrying. I will come over around Twenty-three hundred. D'accord?"

Ludwig grumbled. Shifted from foot to foot. His cheeks had still not lost their blush. "Shall I pick you up from the train station?"

"I won't be on the train. Don't worry. I'll call ahead of time to make sure Feliciano is asleep before I knock." He paused long enough to blow a kiss at the cam. "I expect my cameras to be ready for me when I get there."

"Francis, no, I—" Ludwig began when there was a loud, nasal—

" _Ludovico!_ "

—from just beyond the cam's line of sight.

"Ah," said Francis. "That's why right now is a bad time."

Without a word, without giving Ludwig a chance to find words, Francis flicked off the cam and the attached screen. The image of Ludwig's startled face lingered for a few moments more before the screen gently faded to its neutral gray. Francis leaned back against the counter and sighed.

He buttoned up his shirt.

He fixed his hair.

He washed his face and his hands.

There were no clocks for him to look for as he shuffled out to the living room to sit in his favorite plush chair facing Arthur's door. Francis sat.

He waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Months, weekdays and hours in the Empire are all standardized for convenience's sake. For example, Francis' home planet, G Versaille XIV, has a day of 31 hours with 17 of those hours are in light. Arthur's home planet, Brittanic, does not revolve, so it has eternal days with light on one side, but the rotation time around their star is relatively short; 12 hours I think maybe. Both of their days are our standard 24 hour days, with 12 months in a year, and a year consisting of 365 days, to keep things simple within the Empire. So when they talk about the time here they are talking about Standard Time while if they were talking about their ACTUAL length of days they would be talking about Scientific Time.
> 
> "Ludovico" is replacing Italy's affectionate "Doitsu" as a nickname. The diminutive is "Vico" . A related name is "Luigi" (through "Louis," which has the Germanic root, "Clovis" ) and that is why we can actually legitimately have both Feli and Lovi as well as Lud and Gil, "Mario" and "Luigi." Don't disappoint me now, fandom.
> 
> I was hungry most of the time while writing this. Mangos mangos mangos mangos. I'm a little worried about how much of me shows through Francis' history. Hick.
> 
> Please note that when Francis starts talking about how Feli "failed to sexually fulfill Ludwig and therefore left Lud open to sexual advances from others," Francis is being a dickhead and these are not the author's opinions. The author is asexual.
> 
> Francis' favorite word is 'couilles.' I want to have him saying it at least once in every chapter.


	4. Anna Sun - Walk the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Francis has a rough night, what with having to deal with an Angel Assault and being almost caught in an affair by Ludwig's lover. Arthur and Matthew might be having just as rough nights, though.
> 
> Mentions of suicide. Regulated prostitution. Some sexual content. Weapons.

There was a man in a dark blue uniform.

He wore a hood and a hip holster. He sat, for hours on end, outside the door of Ludwig Beilschmidt’s apartment. He had always sat outside of Ludwig’s apartment. No matter how many years passed, however many other guards were transferred or left, the man in the dark blue uniform with the hood and the holster remained. He had grown tall outside of Ludwig’s door. He had grown gaunt outside of Ludwig’s door. He had been shot three times outside of Ludwig’s door. Beside him was an assault rifle to compliment the smaller handheld guns on his hip holster. There was an electronically locked four-foot mini fridge built into the wall at Ludwig’s request, specifically for the man’s use, filled to the brim with lettuce-tomato-mayonnaise-turkey-ham-bacon-egg sandwiches and nonalcoholic beer.

When Francis arrived at Ludwig’s door, the man in the dark blue uniform was drinking one of these beers and speaking to a second guard, who must have mistaken the time and come early for his shift. Feliciano was long dozing in the guest room when Ludwig received the message that Francis was outside. He went to open the door and ushered Francis in.

Francis was dressed for their meeting.

In Ludwig’s mind, there was a subtle change in the way Francis wore his clothes when he was ready to be taken and when he was ready to be talking.

A dip in the neckline. A looser sweater. More form fitting pants. Hair parted differently. The lack of a belt.

“This is how I always look,” Francis had told him, eyebrows raised and frowning just a little, when Ludwig had commented on the changes in his appearance during their academy years. He’d asked Francis if he was trying to seduce their Management teacher, seeing as the previous five sessions, Francis had dressed like he wanted to be fucked.

Francis was simply in denial, Ludwig decided. That, or he dressed himself subconsciously. Regardless, Francis had the most unfortunate timing to be dressed like he wanted to be fucked every time Ludwig became frustrated, and it made it even more maddening when Francis was always just out of reach, or there was company in the other room, or  _Feliciano_ —

“How are you?” Francis asked as he stepped into the living room. He kissed Ludwig’s lips and dragged Ludwig back into the living room and out of the darkened room in his mind, where Francis’ loose sweater was falling off his shoulders and his hips were sliding out of his pants. “Do you have my cameras?”

“Yes—fine, I’ve been well,” Ludwig said. “We can’t kiss out here.”

“Isn’t Feliciano asleep?”

“Yes, but we still—” Ludwig took a deep breath. Francis’ ribcage shifted under his shirt, under Ludwig’s fingers, as Francis leaned back to look up. Francis’ body would look so good, laid out over blankets. Francis would let him touch. He always did. Feliciano would also look good, splayed out on the bed, small and pliable under his hand, but Feliciano—“Francis, I would greatly prefer keeping our affections to the bedroom.”

“Of course,” Francis said, pulling out of Ludwig’s arms and straightening his clothes. His shirt twisted around his torso. “You do have my cameras though, don’t you?”

Ludwig grunted an affirmative. They hadn’t been very difficult to obtain. He still had many friends and connections to the engineering workers, despite having chosen to follow his father’s wishes to become doctor.

The cameras were four black boxes, small enough to hold in one’s hand. On one side was a thin, colorless lens which appeared to reflect a faint blue light. On the other side was a port to help the cameras remain mounted in place. A few quiet asks and the explanation of recording his experiments in bioelectronics for private reference, for projects to improve the Angel, for making sure he had it right before displaying his findings—

Ludwig had gotten far too proficient at lying ever since Francis had first seduced him. His stomach began to churn, even as he moved with Francis towards his personal room. His eyes continued to flicker towards the door on the far side of the living room, behind which Feliciano was sleeping, innocent and unaware.

The door to Ludwig’s room closed behind him, and Francis fell onto his bed. His shirt rode up to display his stomach, and the stitching scars from where Ludwig himself had sewn Francis together again. His waist was perfectly curved where his hip bones came up and where his obliques wrapped around his sides and helped him breathe and

The scar accentuated his hips. Aside from Arthur, that scar under his fingers might have been Ludwig’s greatest achievement.

Feliciano was in the other room, he reminded himself. Sweet Feliciano. Kind Feliciano.

Francis was under his fingers, arching into his touch.

Ludwig pulled off Francis’ shirt and touched gently Francis’ chest. There was a faint tremble. There was a momentary thought of how fat his fingers seemed against the thin strands of Francis’ hair on his chest, the folds of his neck and the lines of bones in his shoulders. Ludwig bit that shoulder. Francis arched, having been given what he wanted, and gasped when Ludwig’s other hand roughly gripped his crotch.

Francis’ moan was drowned out by a shriek. It rose suddenly, loudly. Ludwig’s ears rung and his hands shook. He fell backwards in a sudden shock. The room was alive with the sound. His shout of, “what the  _fuck_ ,” was drowned out.

As suddenly as it had come, the shrieking ceased.

Francis scrambled off the bed, pulling on his shirt and fixing his hair. What little arousal he’d managed was gone. He held a small, gray sliver of metal in his had. “Cameras.  _Cameras._  I need to go, I’ll get back to you later.”

“What the fuck was that?” Ludwig said, scrambling onto his feet and somehow managing to snatch the cameras up off the shelf despite his furious shaking.

“Alarm,” Francis said. “It’s the alarm for the Angel; I need to go to Arthur. It’s that loud so I never miss it, I’m so sorry, I have to go home right away—”

“Ludovico?”

Ludwig froze. Francis did as well. Feliciano’s head—heart shaped, but not a real heart, the type of heart people said was full of love, not blood—poked through the door.

“Ludovico what’s going on?” Feliciano said. He was naturally darker than either Francis or Ludwig, but even he seemed paler than usual. “I heard a siren. Why is Mr. Bonnefoy here?”

Ludwig’s mouth opened and shut for a moment as he searched, frantically for an explanation. He’d never expected Feliciano to find Francis and him together in his bedroom—Feliciano was rarely at home and the walls were soundproofed, but then, Ludwig had never anticipated such a horrible sound in his room, and soundproofing only went so far. He had never planned any real, viable excuses for such a situation; he needed  a plan—

“I’m sorry, Feliciano, I assumed Ludwig would have told you but I came by to pick up a new painkiller for Arthur and he brought me into his room so we could discuss it without worrying about disturbing you. The alarm was just—it was just to tell me that Arthur was needed and I have to go prepare him. I’m sorry there’s really no time to chat. Ludwig, meds?”

Ludwig fumbled with his hands, though they held nothing yet, mumbling, “right, right,” and stumbled on his way to the large metal drawer where the cameras were held in their small metal box.

Francis snatched the box from Ludwig’s hands, his fingers quick and steady. He paused just a moment to bow just slightly, and a quick wave—then he was racing into the living room. From the living room out the front door. Ludwig could hear the shout from the guard in the dark blue uniform outside his door. Saw the guard rise into the doorway, his gun visible and raised.

“It’s fine!” Ludwig called, unwilling to have any shots fired in his apartment today. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Francis had never been particularly athletic, at least, not that Ludwig had noticed. Francis had been on the fencing team at the Academia for some time, but it had been years and it did not account for how swiftly he’d vanished from sight.

“It must be scary,” said Feliciano. Ludwig turned to see him staring out into the hallway where Francis had disappeared. The guard closed the door gingerly, cutting off their line of sight. “To be so responsible for the Angel, I mean.  _I_ would be scared.”

Ludwig sighed, trying to relax the tension out of his shoulders. “The Angel is not dangerous, Feliciano.”

Feliciano moved closer to Ludwig until he pressed against him. Ludwig stiffened as the thin arms wrapped around his chest and Feliciano’s round hips pressed next to his crotch, but if Feliciano noticed the remnant of Ludwig’s boner, he said nothing, and so Ludwig slowly forced himself to relax into the hug. If Feliciano thought there was something awkward about how Ludwig’s hand came up to ruffle his auburn hair and run a thumb down his pale cheek, he said nothing to that, either. “I promise, Feli. The Angel isn’t about to hurt you. I built it. I know how it works.”

“I know it won’t hurt me,” Feliciano said. His voice was muffled from how his mouth was partly pressed into Ludwig’s ruffled shirt. “I still feel sort of bad for all the people on the planets, though. It must be really scary when the attacks happen!”

Ludwig focused on how Feliciano’s sharp nose was poking into his ribcage. How his hair curled around Ludwig’s fingers. How small Feliciano was against him, and how tight his arms held Ludwig’s torso. Ludwig did not focus on Feliciano’s casual blasphemy.

It was a perk of being their Great Lord Romulus’ grandchild, Ludwig supposed, to not have to censor one’s thoughts.

“Yeah,” said Feliciano to himself. “I think dying afraid and not knowing what’s going on is probably the worst…”

For a moment, Ludwig searched for something to say. Comfort Feliciano that it was swift and better death than the rebels would die otherwise. Remind him it was the rebels who killed their Great Lord’s children and left Feli and his brother orphans. Reassure him that soon enough, the war would be over and the Empire could expand in peace, and it was the rebels who dragged it on so long, condemning themselves.

“I’m going to cook something,” said Feliciano. “That always makes me feel better. Do you want to eat something? What sort of food do you have?”

“Not the type you usually like,” Ludwig said, latching to the new topic with relief. “I can send the guard out to get you what you’d like if you would make a list, though.”

“Won’t we need the guard?”

“On the off chance something happens, I’ll protect you,” Ludwig said. He kissed Feliciano’s forehead and relished as a moment later Feliciano stood on his tip toes to lean up and kiss gently on Ludwig’s lips.

“Okay.”

“Okay. Let’s make a list, then.”

Some few minutes later, Ludwig opened the door to the hall and turned to face the guard in the hooded blue uniform who crouched down against the wall.

“I need you to run an errand.”

“Into town?” the guard said. He tilted his head up as he spoke, and Ludwig could see the anomaly of his skin tone clearly. His gut twisted, though it didn’t, his medical training told him guts didn’t twist for such silly reasons, but the clenching in his midsection was undeniably a response.

“Yes. Not for long. Just a quick run to a food supplier. Feliciano wants to make a dish with pasta and vegetables. You’re welcome to join us later.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“But you may.”

“You sure Caer Germania won’t piss himself if I’m not here?”

“We will be fine,” said Ludwig. “You need to do something other than sit here all day, though. If my guard has a bad back, it’s useless to have him at all.”

The guard laughed in his soft hissing way through the gaps in his teeth. He stretched up onto his feet and Ludwig handed him the list of groceries and a small debit card.

“Feel free to buy yourself a gift as well,” Ludwig said, “Your birthday is coming up soon.”

“I know,” said the guard.

“You can also have you birthday off. I will arrange for another guard to arrive that day.”

The guard finished arranging the list and card in his pockets and pulled his uniform coat tight around him once more. “You’re going to give your father a hernia, giving me all this free rein.”

“ _Our_  father,” Ludwig said.

The guard laughed again, higher again, his hissing, wheezing laugh. His pulled his hood down lower to make sure his face and hair were shadowed. Then, without another word, he walked away.

000

Francis burst into the room, startling both Arthur and his whore awake.

“Up,” Francis said. “ _Up, now_ , they’re calling for you and I’m already late.”

Arthur was still blinking the sleep out of his eyes as he shoved the prostitute off the top of his body and rolled onto the floor. He was still dressed in his pajamas, which at least removed the step of needing to get him dressed. Francis snatched Arthur’s wrist and pulled him out of the door and through their living room where the cameras Ludwig had given him were lying haphazard where he’d tossed them on the counter.

By the time they reached the hallway, Arthur was beginning to hurry along on his own.

“What’s going on?” Arthur said, stumbling barefoot into the elevator behind Francis. The doors slid shut in front of them and the sensation of being pressed down into the floor began as the elevator rose quickly up the building.

“Don’t worry about it,” Francis snapped. “I don’t want any more stress out of you right now. I’ll tell you tomorrow if you still want to know.”

“Where were you?”

“Trying to relax,” said Francis. The elevator buzzed as they reached their destination floor. “The alarm is a real buzz kill.”

“Mh,” Arthur said. They left the elevator much more coordinated than they had run in, both falling into the old military walk as they passed entered the room guarded by part of the militia which reported to their Great Lord Romulus himself.

They passed through the steel doorway, not bothering to swipe their IDs and thankfully only having one person snort a quiet, ‘took you long enough,’ in their direction.

Before them stood the Angel.

The computer was large, standing twice as tall as Francis himself. It sat there, a large foreboding gray cube at the center of the room It was a dark, misshapen hulk of metal with all sorts of connectors and wires Francis could hardly figure out. There was a harddrive, he knew, which was somewhere within the main body of the machine. Attached by wires and tubes to the main body was a large, horizontal, conic chamber, filled with blue lights and long cords. There were cords which ended in suckers to monitor Arthur’s vitals and there were long, thick, which bundles of cords which attached to the ports in his back. There was a helmet made of three gray prongs, needles, and a blinder for the finishing mindwipe. Three lights above the computer served as warning signals should the machine be putting too much strain on Arthur’s body, from green to yellow to red.

Arthur shed his shirt immediately, tossing it aside on the floor and shaking so shallowly it was almost unnoticeable.

He sat in the chair at the center of the cone. It was a padded chair, with straps at the wrists, ankles and chest, to prevent any damage done by seizures or violent twitching which occasionally occurred during the process of synchronizing Arthur with the Angel. A large hole in the back of the chair allowed the six main plugs to attach to the ports in Arthur’s back. As Arthur sat himself in the chair, Francis woke the computer and sent the plugs in the conic chamber descending from their holding areas.

The six main plugs descended from behind Arthur’s chair at the top of the chamber. Rising from his seat at the control module, Francis went to Arthur and began to strap him in as all the rest of the mechanisms took their place.

“Are you set?” Francis said.  
  
Arthur nodded. His already pale face was blanched.

Francis gave a final tug to the straps around Arthur’s body before moving around him to place the vital monitoring suckers—from the sides of the cone, where they rested on retractable extensions—onto the correct positions of Arthur’s body. He took the three-horned helmet which descended from immediately above Arthur and placed it on Arthur’s head gently. The sides of the three strips of metal rested just over Arthur’s eyes, digging in at his temples.

Finally, Francis took the first of the six plugs. With one hand, he held Arthur’s shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. With the other hand, he thrust the first plug inside.

Arthur’s body rocked against the chair. Had the legs not been bolted down, the chair may have tumbled over.

Francis thrust the second plug in. Then the third and fourth, soon joined by the fifth and sixth.

  
As much as his bonds would allow, Arthur slumped over.

The wings were spread. They hung, suspended from the edge of the cone, drooping more like rolls of fabric rather than metal and rubber. The blue lights of the cone washed over Arthur.  Francis turned before his eyes could linger for too long. He slid into his place at the controls, not more than a few feet away from where Arthur sat, wilted.

It wasn’t long before he finished opening the necessary programs and files with very little difficulty. For as much as Francis detested computers, three years of practice made anything smoother. The binary the Angel naturally spoke in was translated into regular text automatically, and the information for the site of attack was listed immediately next to the control area.

‘are you active?’

_Angel Activated._

Standard questions.

‘what is your name?’ he typed.

_B, F-P 94578111097, Kirkland, E. Arthur._

Standard procedure.

‘command:prepare battle strategy’

_Input Information_

No matter what the computer said, the Angel and Arthur were not the same being. The Angel borrowed Arthur’s intellect, but no Kirkland would respond well to anything labeled ‘command.’

Still, his face level, Francis copied the text from the report—pre-formatted by people who wouldn’t want precious Bonnefoy wasting precious time straining his brain cells with computers—and placed it in the input box. He leaned back and monitored Arthur’s vitals as the response was formed.  He ignored any whispering from the guards, wondering why it was Francis doing this job when it could have easily been one of them, when it could have easily been almost anyone, as certainly anyone could copy and paste the text but—

Perhaps those whispers were the result of Francis’ paranoid mind. He hummed to himself and watched Arthur’s vitals, ignoring the clock at the far side of the room and Arthur’s minor spasms in the cone.

The response finished. Franics read none of it. He sent the entire text immediately to his reporting general and proceeded immediately with the mind-wipe. The clamps of the metal helmet constricted around Arthur’s head. He thrashed against the chair.

Francis sat back against his own chair and closed his eyes.

There were no alarm beeps. Two minutes passed uneventfully. Francis rose from the chair and with calculated steps approached Arthur’s motionless form.

He released the helmet first. The blinding visor slid away from Arthur’s eyes. Francis ran his fingers over the thin imprints in Arthur’s temple and forehead by the tiny needles of the mindwipe. Arthur’s skin was freckled with the shallow pockmarks, though they healed relatively quickly. Arthur’s current level of fingertip sensitivity was unable to pick up the shallow depth changes of his skin.

Once the helmet was removed, Francis unplugged the wings. One by one, each of the six main cords was retracted back into the surrounding ring of mechanics. Arthur groaned very quietly, his head lolling from one side to another as though in a fevered nightmare. He would wake soon. Having finished unhooking Arthur from the computer, Francis plucked away the suckered cords which monitored Arthur’s vitals. They too withdrew into the machine like snakes.

Finally, the straps were undone.

Arthur’s eyes had still not opened. His tongue fell out of his mouth. His hands slid into his lap. “Mhamn,” he said.

“Shh,” Francis said, patting Arthur’s cheek. “Shh, come here,” he said, carefully maneuvering Arthur so that Arthur’s arms went around Francis’ neck and Arthur’s legs wrapped around his waist. Francis carried him away from the computer in that fashion, minding Arthur’s head and mumbling to him the whole while.

In the far corner of the computer room, there was a bed. Beside it was a small coffee table, a plush chair, and a water dispenser. Francis lay Arthur down on the bed, drew two cups of water, and drank one while waiting.

It took time for Arthur to come back to himself, now. Francis was certain it was the mind wipes—taking their toll over the last three years after week after week of experimenting, month after month of assaults. Mindwipes always left one disoriented immediately afterwards, Francis had heard.

“I will stop this,” Francis mumbled into his water cup. “I’ll pry that bitch program out of your head if I have to.”

It took an hour for Arthur’s coherency to return.

He called for his whore, once, before Francis could remind him of the attack. Arthur lay in the bed, silent and frowning, until Francis returned him to his room.

000

Matthew waited several minutes in Arthur’s bed. His heart pounded in his chest at first. He could hear nothing but the blood rushing through his ears. Francis Bonnefoy’s sudden intrusion had taken him by surprise—had taken both him and Arthur by surprise—and for an awful moment Matthew had fallen into being two separate people in a desperate situation. He had been a caught spy. He was a refugee on Joten.

Of course, he was neither of those things. Now, when he was back being Matthew in Arthur’s bed, it was easier to remember that he was neither of those things at the moment. Joten had been three years ago, and the skies had long stopped raining rocks and fire. His cover was not blown. The mission was still go. They still had a chance to get through everything alive.

For a moment though, when Francis had burst in the room shouting, he’d forgotten.

Matthew lay in the bed, listening for the sound of returning footsteps. He lay there for several minutes until his heart had steadied and his ears no longer thrummed. He waited, and some few minutes later, he crawled out from under the covers.

He took a moment to adjust his clothes, which had twisted around his body uncomfortably during his time under the covers with Arthur. He shuffled quietly across the room, confident there were no active cameras but still conditioned to wariness after months of spying.

He skipped the bookshelves and went directly to the small metal desk set into the wall.

There was a small file cabinet filled to the brim with papers organized by numbers and dates. Matthew marked his place with one of the scattered robotics magazines as he pulled one after another out, skimming the fronts for anything of interest. He was only three files in when he found a paragraph which made him bite his tongue and still his breath.

 _…successful attack on the 3rd moon of Federa, the machine has been dubbed, “ANGEL,” suggested by Our Great Lord Romulus’ grandson, Heir Feliciano. Since implementation: troop loss averages reduced by 67% , ammunition cost averages reduced by 12%, transportation cost average increased by 30%, reusable land prospects reduced by 50%, successful sp_ …

Matthew skimmed the rest of the folder as quickly as he could before replacing it and immediately picking up the next file in the series. The next file was also written about the Angel Attacks, the fifth in the series, as was the next file, and the file after that detailed in percentages and decimals the destruction of Matthew’s home on Joten.

His stomach twisted over. Bile rose up into his throat. 

He grit his teeth and skimmed through the rest of the reports as quickly as he could, soon realizing they were nothing but reports on the aftermath of attacks. Still, it was the first definitive sign that they had discovered someone with a direct connection to the attacks. It was better than nothing.

He thought of how Arthur and Francis had dashed out of the room and tried to quell his suddenly pounding heart.

Matthew removed the robotics magazine from the file cabinet and replaced it on the floor before closing the cabinet: a picture of how it had been when he found it. Matthew stood and began rifling through the other cabinets in the desk. There was very little in the drawers: pens, mostly. Old ink pens and pads of plain paper and little electronics Matthew had no time to break into once he realized they were password protected. Still, the pens perked his interest, as he hadn’t found much of anything for them to be used for. While he had gotten more used to the appearance of old relics from the ages of easy-found-wood since coming to Italia, he would have assumed a collector would have his pens on display rather than hiding them in a desk. Or at least, that his collection would have a tad more variety.

Matthew continued to search the desk for something the pens had written on. He was rewarded for his diligence when, while knocking his knuckles into the bottom of the center drawer, he found the bottom of the drawer shifted. Picking up a stiff scrap wire on the table, he slid the edge of the wire down the small gap in the front of the drawer and pulled up the panel concealing a second compartment within the drawer.

There, lying in the bottom compartment of the drawer, was an old paper-bound book.

Grinning, Matthew lifted the book carefully and set it out on the desk.

It wasn’t uncommon for his customers to keep a personal, hand-written article of some sort or other. Paper was much harder for the government to hack, paper couldn’t be tortured, and in a pinch it could be destroyed quite easily, making a much safer place for confidence. If Arthur had additional information about the Angel which wasn’t permitted in someone’s personal files kept in their bedroom, it would likely be talked about in a personal journal.

Listening for another moment to make sure there were no footsteps coming down through the hallway, Matthew carefully picked up the book again and cracked it open to the middle.

_I’m sorry_

_I’m sorry_

_I’m sorry_

Matthew frowned. He flipped to another page quickly. One earlier on in the journal. This one had full sentences, a full entry. The date had been smudged, but was still legible as sometime in the 7th month the year prior.

_I don’t want to read the reports anymore. I don’t want to look at what I’ve done. I’m a coward. I have the option to not look at what I’ve done._

Matthew’s frown deepened. He bit his lip and turned another few pages forward.

_The galaxies would be better off if I just killed myself. If anyone is to be my victim it should be myself._

Matthew’s breath came out slow. His lungs emptied and his head felt light. “Shit…”

He no longer cared to listen for the sound of footsteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -International suicide hotlines: http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html
> 
> -Emotional baggage checking in case you just want to vent (or help others vent): http://emotionalbaggagecheck.com )
> 
> -7 Cups of Tea provides you with someone to listen to your problems online. All their listeners are professionally trained and interviewed before being allowed to listen on the website to you to make sure they will be friendly, competent, and compassionate. http://www.7cupsoftea.com
> 
> -Both these two websites are private chatrooms for people in crisis, or bad situations, or who are just not doing too hot and really need someone to talk to but who are uncomfortable using or unable to access a phone. http://www.crisischat.org , http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineChat.aspx
> 
> 000
> 
> Ahaha this took far too long to write for what it is… plot ball will hopefully start rolling soon, though, what with Matthew finding those precious documents.
> 
> I’m very angry with Francis. He derailed this entire fucking thing twice. TWICE. Twice. GDI Francis. Stop. Go get your own series.
> 
> 000
> 
> I’m not sure what the ettiquette for this is? But I’m going to take a brief moment to plug another one of my fanfic projects (if you want to help me out with my I-want-to-make-my-living-with-this project… please ask me about art and writing commissions or check out my fledgling webcomic. )
> 
> For anyone who’s interested, I’m starting an “Asexual Relationfics” series on AO3 where every now and then I’ll upload a story about a character as an asexual. It might be infrequent, but it might also be a fun way to check out new serieses or if you just want asexual characters and relationships and don’t really care where they’re from. A lot of the fics might focus specifically on the asexuality? But others I’m planning to have just straight-up nonsexual characters who it just isn’t really a thing, so maybe an asexual universe? Ahaha that would be great… but yeah. Here is the link:
> 
> Some fandoms I am planning to write for:  
> Deadman Wonderland  
> Pokemon  
> Attack on Titan (( the only one actually uploaded ))  
> APH
> 
> (Do note that just because it’s asexual fic doesn’t mean there will necessarily be no sex stuff at all, or that sex/sexual assault will never be mentioned. Everything will be tagged accordingly, though. ) 
> 
> thanks for reading everyone! And sorry again about the waits between chapters! I hope the content's been making up for it. :)


	5. Embers - Owl City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throughout the galaxy, small revolutions continue to spark up. Some are more important than others. 
> 
> Additional Warnings for this Chapter: mentions of violence and death, descriptions of war zones, nongraphic scarring.

Matthew raced to Mona’s office the moment he was released from Arthur’s apartment that morning. His heart was racing even though he did his best to appear composed as usual when he walked through the known monitored areas of the complex they lived in as their home base. 

His hands were shaking as he knocked on Mona’s office door and was let in. She was behind her desk typing away on a computer when he entered. There were slight bags under her eyes and she was propping her head up with her hand and leaning her elbows on the desk. 

Her tired eyes flickered upwards. He must have been wearing quite the expression from the way she looked at him.

“Matthew?” she said, tapping the hologram screen of her computer away, ridding the room of any possible spying. “What is it?” 

“He’s part of the Angel Attacks,” Matthew said, the words blundering out as soon as he formed them in his mind. “The man, my client—fuck—uh—Arthur. Him. He’s a founding member of the Angel Initiative I think.” 

A pause. Then, all in a rush, Matthew said, “Was there an attack last night?”

Mona, wide-eyed with her mouth partly open, nodded slowly. 

“When?”

“A short while after midnight,” said Mona, reaching into the many papers and files on her desk. “I… there was a battle going on for a while before hand and not long after midnight it became clear there was an Angel strategy in play when the Empire’s soldiers began… well, dying faster.” 

Matthew swallowed a lump in his throat. There were few patterns the Angel Attacks followed except that they were always executed quickly, most battles which they were certain of the Angel Initiative’s involvement in where over within an hour or two. And the more brutal the victory, the higher the losses on both sides.

Bodies piled up into mountains. 

“They left last night,” Matthew said. “They left. That must have been what they left for. Francis Bonnefoy was saying something about how they were already late. They were gone for nearly three hours. It fits.”

“I’m calling Alfred in,” Mona said, quickly waking her computer again and typing out an intranet message to Matthew’s brother. She slid her screen down again, securing the room. “You looked around while they were out?”

Matthew nodded. “I did. There wasn’t very much I could understand in Arthur’s room with the time I had, and I didn’t want to go outside of it in case they had surveillance in their living room or something. I know for a fact there are no cameras in the bedrooms, but I didn’t want to take extra chances and I didn’t know when they would be back. He had a—a few files, about the attacks. Mostly stats. Body count, hours taken, how much the Angel had reduced regular troop losses. But some of the numbers looked strange? Like they were definitely not reducing the number of dead infantry on either side. But that’s what it said in the report. Just… a bunch of stats about the ‘Angel.’ Sites of battles. Things that happened. Not much else.” 

Mona frowned. “We already know about all the battles Angel’s been in, Matthew. At least enough of them to know that we can’t beat it like we are now, just looking at our manpower differences. Those files don’t help anything.” 

“I know, I know,” Matthew said. “Those were the official things I found though. What Arthur’s being told. What I found that was really interesting was his journal—”

Matthew’s throat tightened. 

Mona waited, her arms wrapping around her middle. 

“Yes?” she said. “What about it?” 

Matthew took deep breaths through his nose until he could feel lightheadedness forcing him to relax. “His journal wasn’t very informative strategy wise… but it did tell me that Arthur and Francis are definitely heavily responsible for the Angel Assaults…. And Arthur feels responsible. It sounds like he’s been contemplating suicide for a while. I don’t know. But that might have been why he was in the hospital when I was first called to him. It sounds like he’s lost his faith in the Empire.”

There was a brief quiet in the office. 

“There’s too much risk in trying to recruit him,” Mona said. Her voice was very soft. “We could expose ourselves and not only be executed, but reveal that the rebellion has a presence within the Empire, and put everything in jeopardy. There’s too much risk. But we can use this to our advantage. Will they object to you carrying something to communicate with when you come to sleep with him?”

The knock on the door made Matthew bite his tongue as he was about to respond. Mona stiffened, but the door swung open slowly to reveal Alfred, who had finally come in response to her message to meet. He closed the door behind himself securely. Matthew let out a sigh of relief and leaned on his half-brother’s shoulder when Alfred came near.

“What did I miss?” Alfred asked, winding an arm around Matthew’s back. 

“Matthew’s client and his roommate are involved in the Angel Assaults,” Mona said. “I was just asking if he though he might be able to bring a communication device with him.”

“Why? What did you have in mind?” Matthew said.

“In case there’s another Angel Assault, and assuming they leave beforehand, if you have a way to contact us we might be able to create a code system to relay information back home and give them enough time to start evacuating before the Assault even begins.” 

“That’s out of the question,” Alfred said. 

Mona and Matthew stared at him. 

“What?” said Matthew. “Al, dude, it’s a pretty solid idea.”

“It’s way too fucking dangerous,” Alfred said, staring Matthew right in the eyes. “We use the information system the Empire has set up to talk to home base. It goes right through their fastest, most monitored systems. Mattie can’t send messages back home through that mess. They’ll catch him and kill him in no time.”

Matthew stared right back into Alfred’s eyes—the bright, winter blues eyes he was told his mother had—and shivered.

“Coded, Alfred,” said Mona. “And without knowing who’s using what code or which messages are coded at all, and going through proxy servers and medians on Louie, in addition to at least five other planet and moons, the Empire won’t crack our code. They won’t know who sent the message or whether or not there was a message at all.”

“No, but if he can learn when they’re coming, the Emperor will know that Matthew started bringing something to communicate with just as the Angel Assaults started being predicted. The safest thing to do is to fuck the system over, pull Mattie out entirely, and send him back right now.”

Matthew stood there, mouth agape, with his brother’s arm around him. “What? Alfred, what the fuck?” 

Alfred’s face was impassable. “They’re involved with the Angel, Mattie. You need to get as far away from them as possible.”

“No,” Matthew said. “Our entire mission for the last two years has been focused on getting as close to the Angel as possible and learning about it. Do you get it Al? This is our chance. We could potentially turn the tide of the war!”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” said Alfred. “This whole time we’ve found nothing but trouble and more bullshit. This was a stupid mission to start with. This thing that you’ve stumbled on? This is more of the same bullshit but way more fucking dangerous.” 

“Al,” Matthew said. 

“No,” said Alfred. “No. This is going to get you killed.” 

Matthew bit his lip. “And what about all the people fighting the Empire that might live?” 

“Matt,” Alfred said, his eyes narrowing, “you dying here won’t do them shit.” 

“Neither will running away from this kind of opportunity,” Matthew said. He tugged his shoulder away from Alfred’s arm, scowling. “This is the whole reason we came here. In case you didn’t notice, we’ve been risking our lives this entire time!” then, when he felt heat rise up his throat, Matthew barred his teeth and said, “I thought you wanted to be a hero.”

“A hero, sure,” Alfred said, “not a moron and not dead. You’re not doing this.” 

“This isn’t your call. It’s between me and Mona, and unless you want to get us arrested, there’s shit-all you can do to stop us. If you can’t handle knowing that I’m going to be in danger, maybe you should have stayed behind at the camp.” 

“If I did that, you’d have already been dead three times over!” 

“No I would not!” 

“Yes you would have!” 

“Guys, stop,” Mona said. “Stop!” 

Matthew shoved at Alfred. “You’re an idiot!” 

Alfred shoved back. “And you’re a fucking twig!” 

“Stop!” 

Mona leapt to her feet. She grabbed both brothers by the hair and shook them violently, throwing them to the floor. 

“Stop, stop this right now,” she said, standing above them. She was out of breath. Neither brother dared stand again. “We can’t be doing this right now. Stop it. You’re family, family shouldn’t fight like this.” 

“He can’t—” Alfred began. Mona held up a finger and he silenced. 

“Alfred, you’re a lovely person, and you’ve been a great help to the rebellion over the years,” Mona said, “but I think it would be best if you left the office. Matthew and I will discuss the possibilities alone, where you won’t have to worry over him.” 

Wordlessly, Alfred stood. He turned his back without looking at Mona or his half-brother and strode to the door. The door slammed shut behind him.

Matthew stared at the place his half-brother had been moments before. 

An uncomfortably long silence fell over the room. Mona bent to help Matthew back onto his feet.

“What the fuck was his problem?” Matthew said, his voice soft. 

Mona shrugged. She sighed. She fell backwards into her chair once more. “I don’t know. With any luck, he’ll be over it soon enough. For now, we need to discuss what to do with you and your client.” 

Matthew nodded. 

“Right,” he said. “You’re right.”

He sat in the chair opposite of her, and they spoke. 

000

Alfred remembered watching the bombs come down. He remembered the flashes of light as his first home was bombed, long before he met Matthew. They were raised apart, Matthew with his rebellious father and Alfred with their rebellious mother. His own father was a civilian. Alfred was raised quietly. His home was a small moon with two seasons: spring and winter. There were wildflowers, cattle, ice, and little else. It was a fragile little moon. He remembered very little of it, aside from the coin-taste of a metal bullet he’d found tucked in the dirt three days after the invasion began.

The bombs came down by the end of that week. They lit the sky up like fireworks. The wildflowers were tossed into the air. They shattered with the ice; the ice shattered like glass and melted into the poisoned soil. The atmosphere blazed until the oxygen all but burned away. He remembered the heat on his face. The smoke in his lungs. The roar of fire in the trees.

He remembered being seven years old. His mother shoved him and his father onto the third escape vessel: a small, ovular, sleek craft with five other families and two seats left. 

“Find my other son, Matthew! Find Matthew! Take care of him!”

And then she burned, too.

He remembered finding Matthew. One year later, six months after the escape craft ran out of rations and their rescuing shuttering rebel flagship crossed paths with one of the Empire’s lumbering destroyer ships.

Their rescuers’ ship burned. But they found Matthew.

They survived for the second time and escaped to Joten. 

Alfred was eight. Matthew was a year older. Products of their mother’s amiable affairs. One born to a civilian and the other to a solider.

Matthew was lying on the dirt floor of a refugee center, his hair matted, making faces at a concerned white service dog. Matthew’s father was nowhere to be found. Shot down, down, down, into a mass grave a few months prior. Matthew was thin from lack of food.

Matthew had never been in a war zone before.

Alfred heard explosions in loud noises and felt the vibrators of aftershock in the rumbling of machines. He saw bombs appearing out of thin air above his father’s head, as the boxes being stacked broke the shelf they were on and came tumbling down onto his head. The sound was tremendous. The breath left Alfred’s lungs. Breath also left his father’s lungs. It never returned like Alfred’s did. There was no fire this time. Only the leftovers of broken boxes and their last parent’s prone body on the floor.

Matthew saw boxes. Alfred saw bombs. 

It was the fundamental difference between them, perhaps. They were otherwise, as much as half brothers could be, identical. Their hair was the same color. Their eyes were only a few shades off. Alfred was extremely nearsighted while Matthew was far too farsighted, and they wore the same frames for their glasses. They were both tall and thin, but built for easy-grown muscle mass. They wrinkled their noses when they smiled.

But when the bombs came down on Joten, Matthew saw bombs for the first time, and for the first time, Alfred saw nothing but the escape pods, the extra rations, the families struggling to decide who would fit on the crafts and—with clarity, when shrapnel flew inches from where Matthew’s face would have been if Alfred had shoved him to the ground a moment later— Alfred saw that Matthew would die without him.

000

Cam was not born in the heart of the Empire. He was born on a mid-ring moon near the gas giant of Tarth. His family was large and well-connected, but only to each other. He had heard the news within a week that his aunt had died. If she had died on Pompeii, he would have heard within minutes, but the delay of the information traveling between worlds had made the news take a week. He had been messaged almost immediately, he decided, for only a week’s delay. 

His aunt, a large woman with bright eyes and strong arms, had gotten him his first interview as a soldier and a guard. He had maintained his position well, climbed the ranks, been transferred wherever they liked him, and gotten as many letters of recommendation as could be processed by the mail. 

And now, Cam lived in the heart of the Empire, at the heart the Emperor’s palace in a barracks with private rooms, television and a paycheck he could send half of back to Tarth and still afford his necessities and the occasional treat.

It was funny, because guarding the Emperor’s palace was the easiest guard job he’d ever had. Cam had not once been shot at while patrolling the halls. He had not once been maimed by murderous animals or suffocated by poisonous atmospheres. He stood in a hallway, bored for hours, and stared emotionlessly at those who passed him by. He returned to his rooms, polished his armor, and watched television as he waited for his paycheck. No one attacked the Emperor. No one had any desire to. Besides, Their Great Lord Romulus would likely be able to overpower any assassin who approached him. They might have been well paid to save the assassins from meeting the Emperor. It was funny.

But it also sort of wasn’t. 

Cam had spent much of his life belly-crawling across hazardous landscapes, shooting at rebels not any older than Lady Helen’s lazy boy, or Lady Hathor’s son, who silently scampered through the hallways while being chased by his poorly tempered but powerful bodyguard. But neither Heracles nor Gupta was not underdeveloped, malnourished, lined up and shot. 

Cam did not share these memories with anyone.

He was well paid now. He was clean and well cared for. He hadn’t shot anything more alive than plastic targets in two years. His aunt had died proud of him. He had a small group of friends. He had a pet, Kokolo, whose breathing at night reminded him that he was in the heart of luxury, not crouching on a rebel world or suffering with an exploration party. He was no longer a pawn to the Angel Initiatives’ deadly strategies.

He had a two-room dorm to himself, now. He had a small kitchen and a small bedroom with a television in it. He had a small refrigerator with food inside. He had warm blankets and a clean community bathroom just down the hall. He had Kokolo at the foot of his bed, chewing on a soccer ball and snarling. 

Kokolo was a type of cat. A lion, Cam had been told. A miniature lion; they had once gotten much larger, but Kokolo would only grow to be the size of Cam’s leg, at most, but probably not even that large. A runty lion.

(“Not even,” they had said, as if an animal the size of Cam’s leg weren’t extraordinarily large already. ) 

Kokolo lay on the foot of the bed, gnawing the most recent soccer ball Cam had bought. He tended to buy several balls at once—lifting was a form of stress relief for him, even if he couldn’t play much of a real game here in the small, proper, rich streets of Pompeii—so he could have at least one at a time while Kokolo slowly devoured another. 

As he watched Kokolo chew, Cam heard a knock at the door. 

He straightened up, frowning and turning slowly to face his entryway. He typically didn’t have many visitors—boring as guarding the palace was (thankfully) it was still tiring to be on his feet for hours upon end. It was tiring for everyone. They socialized on the job if they did at all. Hours in their room were for rest and recuperation. 

Habitually, Cam touched the gun at his hip as he approached the door. He had only gotten off duty a short while ago and had yet to change out of his black uniform and padding. 

He crossed the short distance to the door and opened it slowly, peering through the crack.

“…Gilbert?”

The man in the dark blue uniform on the other side of the door smiled from under his hood. Cam opened the door more widely and ushered the other guard in. 

“Hey,” said Gilbert, dropping his hood the moment the door closed behind them. Kokolo lifted her head from the soccer ball and watched him, blinking slowly with her golden eyes before they settled into recognition. She gave a low grumble of greeting, allowing him into her territory, and resumed chewing her soccer ball. Gilbert laughed a low, hissing laugh. “Your furball looks like she’s doing well.” 

“Yeah, she’s doing fine,” said Cam, moving away from the door and back to the couch now that his irrational panic had passed. The heart of the Empire was as safe as safe could be. “How are you though? What’s that you have with you?” 

Gilbert looked down to the small brown grocery bag he was carrying in one black-gloved hand. “This? This’s my birthday present. From me. Luddy let me play hooky for a bit. It was kind of last minute; sorry about not calling first.”

“Shit, dude, it’s fine. I can’t believe your father let him give you the day off though,” said Cam, plopping himself down on the couch. He began undoing the buttons of his uniform, stripping off the bullet-proof vests and utility belts as he leaned in to get a closer look at the bag, which Gilbert was leaning down to unpack.

“Yeah, nah, Caer Germania doesn’t know shit. Luddy just kind of gave me a card and told me I could go the other night. I tried to keep costs down so no one would notice the extra spending but, no, the old bastard doesn’t know. Still, check out this shit.” Gilbert said, getting on his knees and beginning to pull food out of the bag. As he displayed them, he spoke. “Salted pork, case of booze, some potatoes, butter, salt, cream, cupcakes. Check out my fucking cupcakes, these look delicious.” 

He pulled out a container of no less than sixteen bright yellow cupcakes with neon- buttercream and sprinkles which sizzled like fireworks when eaten.

“You had better be sharing that with me,” said Cam. 

“Why would I be here if I weren’t?” said Gilbert, grinning. “’Sides, I missed the company. D’you have any pots and a masher?”

“Yeah, in the kitchen. Knock yourself out. You know how to work the oven and stove? I can disable auto function if you need me to.” 

“Yeah, I’m good, no problem,” said Gilbert. He carefully replaced all his groceries in the bag and hurried off to the kitchen, grinning widely and hissing to himself in glee. 

Cam had met Gilbert earlier in his career while guarding an envoy by the Beilschmidt family. They had guarded the same rooms together for hours, side by side, and well—one didn’t choose their guarding partner, but they certainly chose how to act with them, and Cam and Gilbert had somehow struck it off.

They made something of an odd pair. They would stick out in any crowd, even if Gilbert hadn’t had that—thing with his skin.

He was probably castrated. To prevent the spread of undesirable genes. Cam had never asked. He was certain though, if Caer Germania cared enough about a defect to reduce his firstborn to a guard, he would have cared enough to go extra measures to ensure that Gilbert’s anomaly wouldn’t proliferate.

Cam finished undressing and tossed his clothes in the laundry corner before moving to his dresser and pulling on something more comfortable. There wasn’t much room in the apartments, despite them being private rooms and much more desirable than the barracks he had once slept in. There was a bed, dresser, couch, a small table, and a television in his room leading to the hall, and the small kitchen complete with refrigerator, and a rarely used oven with a stovetop. Premade meals (and meals created with the intent of being put together by an auto-function on the stove which would combine the food itself) were cheaper. Preparing food oneself was a privilege that Cam rarely got to indulge in. The premade stuff was pretty good, anyway.

Gilbert’s birthday was his own boon, though. He could make the mashed potatoes and the pork. It might as well have been a second present, assuming Gilbert enjoyed preparing food. 

Apparently some people didn’t. Cam personally would have rather had his usual food. He was more of a grains-nuts-and-fish sort of person, but meat was expensive. He hadn’t had much beyond jerky in weeks. Pork sounded pretty good at the moment. 

Gilbert came out of the kitchen some time later, his uniform coat shed and his red eyes a striking contrast to his pale skin. He slid on the couch beside Cam, kicking his feet up as he did so. 

“So,” said Gil. “How’ve you been? What did I miss?”

Cam leaned back as well, finding it much easier to relax in his shorts and t-shirt. By the bed, Kokolo’s soccerball made an awful squealching sound. 

“Not much,” said Cam. “I’ve been moved to the Consuls’ hallways, so I’ve been trying to dodge them and their kids. And their kids’ bodyguards.”

“Ouch,” said Gilbert. “Sounds rough.” 

“They’re a handful. Heracles argues with Adnan all the time and Gupta just… watches. I think he gets them together sometimes just so he can watch them go at it. Of course, I’m just there the whole time going like, ‘well shit, do I break this up or not? Is Adnan about to kill Lady Helen’s kid? Will I get killed if I let him?’ Just a lot of that lately,” said Cam. 

“What do they even argue about that much?” Gilbert said, his eyebrows rising. 

“I don’t know. Something about Earth-That-Was. Adnan has a family heirloom about it that was passed down through his generations or something, and Heracles has his education. I think they might be arguing about whose version is more accurate, but I can’t always really make it out. Sometimes it’s about whether drinking alcohol is okay or not. Adnan says coffee is better and thinks all alcohol should be banned. Heracles defends by just chanting ‘wine’ over and over. It’s awful.” 

“Damn. And what’s Carriedo do?”

“Stands behind Heracles and smiles like a fucking idiot.”

“…that’s probably why Adnan doesn’t attack.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Cam sighed. “Still, he freaks me out too.”

Gilbert nodded. “I feel you. I watched Carriedo go at someone once. Adnan is good in close combat but Carriedo fights dirty.”

“You say that like you don’t.”

Gilbert frowned, closing his eyes and turning his nose in the air. “I don’t fight dirty, I fight smart. I still wouldn’t want to get into a fight with him, though.” 

“Yeah,” Cam yawned, stretching. “Whatever. I just feel bad for uh. Damn. What’s his name.”

“Hm?” 

“Our Great Lord Romulus’ second grandson. Not the cute one.” 

“Romano Lovino?” 

“Yeah. Him. Carriedo teases him. It’s actually awful? But great at the same time. But mostly awful, because you know how Romano Lovino had that big breakup with his first girlfriend a few years ago and Our Great Lord Romulus ‘delivered retribution’ upon her for breaking his heart?” 

“You’re shitting me. He doesn’t joke about that.” 

“No, really,” said Cam, leaning in to tell the story.

They spoke like this for some time, swapping stories about their escapes as guards—though Cam did most of the talking, having had more exposure to strange people, providing stranger stories. Gilbert mostly talked about Ludwig and his odd meetings, or made quiet un-remarks about his father, and how cute Feliciano was, and how kind, and how good, and how he had nightmares about a breakup between Feliciano and Ludwig going the same way that Romano Lovino’s had. 

“Feli gave me a canary,” said Gilbert, midway through telling Cam about the blond sex bunny Ludwig was in lust with during the Academy years who now worked with some secret part of the military and would drop by every now and then, and how Feliciano was superior to this blond sex bunny in every possible way. “A few months ago. It’s a girl, and apparently those aren’t supposed to sing much? But she’s been trained. She lets me know if people have been in my room while I was out, or when she’s hungry, or if she wants to fly around more. It’s really cool. She is the raddest bird.” 

They opened the packet of cupcakes just as they remembered the mashed potatoes were still in the water and that the oven had surely heated by enough for the pork. 

They ate their cupcakes—their mouths sparking like fireworks and their teeth being dyed neon colors—and mashed potatoes while waiting on the pork. While they ate and waited, they turned on the television, flipping through several channels before finally deciding on a channel which was marathoning a soap opera Gilbert had fallen behind with.

The first commercial break left off at a tragic point—Aeneas’ attempts to find a new home for the human race were failing, and the likelihood was dwindling that he would be able to carry the treasure from Earth-That-Was to a new home where it could be reinstated and the humans could thrive again as the fuel on their ships slowly ran out along with their food and water supplies—and cut directly to an ad for the gladiator games. Pits of fire. Falling debris. Violent criminals. Brought to you direct from Hoi Poloi Entertainment.

“I forgot why I loved this one,” said Gilbert. “I mean. It’s kind of obvious that Aeneas finds Italia? Otherwise we’d all be dead.” 

“Shh,” said Cam. “No spoilers.” 

“Oh for crying out loud—”

They slapped each other some, scowled, grinned, and broke into quiet giggles. 

“Asshole,” said Gilbert. “But seriously. It’s better the first time around.” 

“Where did you leave off?” 

“Aeneas is about to kill Turnus, but then he’s reconsidering.”

“You are going to cry.”

“Please tell me they get together,” Gilbert said, his face completely flat. 

“Oh shit,” said Cam. “Oh no.”

“No. They’re compatible!” said Gilbert, his poker face morphing instantly into an expression of horror.

“I can’t tell you!” 

“No!”

By the end of the commercial break, Cam had cupcake and spark sprinkles mashed over his face, courtesy of Gilbert, but he was grinning while Gilbert sat, arms-crossed and scowling deeply, glaring at the television, so Cam had clearly come out on top this time. 

It took until the end of the second episode for Gilbert to admit it maybe was okay, and Turnus at least got to die at the hand of his beloved.

They ate their mashed potatoes without waiting for the pork. There were still seven cupcakes left, and their commercial break talk turned to politics. 

There was no particular ban on talking about politics. It was just that certain blasphemy or euphemisms were dangerous if one was caught uttering them.

That left not much to talk about on the political side aside from more workplace gossip.

“Caer Kirkland is ready to throw another fit,” said Cam. “She’s going on about things with Caer Clovis, but they’re both at each other’s necks and everyone’s about ready to try tossing them out a window if they so much as look at each other one more time.”

“They’d probably survive,” said Gilbert, licking icing from his thumb. “Their insurance plan is ridiculous. And Mama Kirkland might want to match her son.” 

“Hm?” 

“Arthur Kirkland. One of my brother’s experiments. Turned out really well apparently,” he continued chewing his thumb even after the icing was gone. 

“Oh, really? I’ve never heard of him.” 

“It’s pretty classified but yeah. No. The Senate is probably full of weirdos who’d be totally into it.”

“Ah. Okay. I guess guarding your brother means you learn a lot of classified stuff from him and Feliciano?”

“Less than you’d think from standing outside his door, but yeah, I learn a little that way,” he leaned back and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then, wordlessly, pulled out a piece of paper from his pant’s pocket and a small pen. 

Cam raised an eyebrow, then, suddenly nervous, he turned back towards the tv screen and upped the volume, pretending to watch while keeping the corner of his eye on Gilbert’s hands. 

A scrapped of paper was pressed into his palm. 

Cam looked down to read it.

I believe there’s a rebellion in the government

A knot formed in Cam’s throat. A second piece of paper was passed to him before he could begin wondering if he was supposed to respond to the first paper or not.

I need to know your honest opinion of the Emperor. You as a soldier

The small pen was pressed into Cam’s hand alongside the second note, which had far more empty space than the first paper scrap. 

Cam looked at Gilbert sideways. His friend was watching the TV intently, his face flat and mouth firmly in a straight line. 

Who the fuck carried paper around in their pockets like that? 

Untrustworthy people. That’s what Cam had been told growing up. People with things to hide from the Empire. Ones who have to hide their communication. The kind of people you are supposed to turn in without hesitation. 

And then there was Gilbert there, pale and thin, and an occasional pain in the ass, but as close of a friend as Cam had known even back home on his mid-range moon of Tarth.

I dislike some of his more brutal operations, Cam wrote back. His letters were large and clumsy, having never really practiced writing them on paper. He passed the note to Gilbert. Cam’s heart was loud in his ears, though he hadn’t said anything particularly radical. Things that were violent happened sometimes. He was allowed to not particularly like overly violent things. That was permitted.

How far would you be willing to go to stop those operations?

Cam wrote, slowly, what do you mean?

There is a rebellion growing inside Pompeii.

There was a particular coldness which spread through Cam’s fingers. His breathing was steady. He tried to focus on Kokolo’s snores—she had been dozing ever since it was clear she wouldn’t get a cupcake—and wrote, we need to report this.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Gilbert wrote back, we can’t. We have to pick a side.

Why not report it?

b/c it is the only way to speed the end of the killings. It would probably cease at the end of Romulus’ reign, but my brother is quickly advancing bioelectronics. Romulus Dominus might live forever.

Cam stared at the paper when it fell into his hands again. He thumbed over the words, the indent they left in the paper, the way the letters smudged just so, and how they were undoubtedly real, sitting on that cluttered bit of paper in his lap. When he didn’t respond within a few minutes, Gilbert quietly tore another paper out of his pad and passed another note.

either we live like this forever, or we take a chance and place the Twins as dictators.

This time Cam did have a response. One he could without a doubt write honestly. Feli and Lovi would die or the empire would crumble. We can’t survive in an anarchic state now. We’re galactic.

(Cam realized too late that he never scolded even the notion of killing Their Great Lord Romulus. It passed through his mind as a result so inoffensive he hadn’t realized it. Perhaps the thought is so obscene—that Their Great Lord Romulus, Body of the Empire—the he could die. Perhaps he just didn’t register the possibly at all. Gilbert doesn’t mention it.) 

they will survive with the right advisors and enough trusted men.

This conversation was getting to be too much. Cam was waiting for his door to be broken down at any moment. He lived in Lord Romulus’ palace, for pity’s sake. This was the worst place in the galaxy to be plotting their Emperor’s murder.

who is organizing this?

Gilbert’s red eyes flickered up to look at Cam as he wrote, we have the most powerful inside man you can imagine.

we?

Slowly, Gilbert nodded.

Cam took a deep breath and tried to calm the pounding in his chest. “Turn the TV off and help me get the meat out. It’s done by now, right?”

They burnt the papers in the oven, pieced out the pork—some cuts for Cam, some cuts for Gilbert, some cuts for Kokolo and a few more stored away for later. 

It felt like it took a long time for the conversation to pick up again.

000

“I’m bringing a whore here.” 

“What?” Arthur looked up from his book. He was perched at the edge of his couch in their den while Francis lay slumped in his favorite soft armchair across from him, flicking through the holographic screen of his computer. Behind them, the wall rolled with images of Brittannic’s endless ocean.

“I said I’m thinking about getting a whore. I want some stress relief but I can’t go out right now. I keep thinking there’s going to be another attack,” Francis said. He rolled his shoulders back, grunting, but did not do much else to correct his poor posture.

“There’s probably not going to be a call for me,” said Arthur. “Especially since the last one was just a few days ago and there hasn’t been one in the meantime. I mean, they usually come back to back or scattered, don’t they?” 

“Sometimes,” said Francis. “I’m still getting that feeling though. So I’m just going to give in and order a whore I guess. After dinner.” 

“Have you made dinner yet?” 

“No. I have to convince myself to get up first.”

“Get up you whiny bag of bones. You’re not allowed to fucking complain when you’re not even trying,” Arthur said. He frowned and looked around him for something to flick at Francis. Nothing in arm’s reach presented itself.

“Shut up, I’ll get to it eventually,” Francis said.

“Pass me your computer when you’re done,” Arthur said, an idea striking him as Francis groaned again and started to slowly sit up and rise from his chair. 

“Why?”

“I need it for something.”

“Fine,” Francis stretched, the base for the computer—a long, thin metal bar which projected the keyboard and screen—in his hand. Francis had a thing for the thin, elongated versions of technology. He dropped it in Arthur’s lap as he passed, the thing thudding and its screen and keyboard flickering as it bounced. 

“Thank you, dear,” said Arthur.

“Fuck off.” Francis raised his middle finger as he walked.

“I love you too,” said Arthur, marking his place in his book and setting it aside to give the computer his attention. He tried to ignore the nagging fears in the back of his mind. He didn’t want to be a murderer tonight. 

Francis vanished into the kitchen and Arthur logged onto Pompeii’s micronet. The micronet, along with several other large cities’ micronets, existed within the planet’s intranet, which existed within the internet connecting the planets within the Empire. The intranet was the slowest to use, having to encompass the most amount of information over a wide area. The internet was actually the fastest of the networks, but took the longest time to actually send information, considering the travel distance between planets, despite the acceleration technology in place which allowed them to warp signals across controlled distances. The micronets however, the most commonly used, were fortunately only used over small enough areas and only dealt with only one country’s population at the absolute most.

Arthur went to the whore advertising pages and quickly went through the selections.

Blond. Male. Blue Eyes. Short Hair. Check, check, check, check. Ah. There he was.

Arthur sent in a request—which from Francis’ computer would cancel out any other request the whore may have had already—and wrote their apartment in the delivery address, as well as the time that Matthew was supposed to arrive.

“What’re you doing on my computer, anyway?” Francis called from the kitchen. They were having some kind of pasta for dinner, judging by the smell. “You’re being quiet. It’s unnerving.” 

“I’m just doing you a favor,” Arthur said. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“You’ll be the death of me,” Francis called from the kitchen. 

“Don’t tempt fate,” said Arthur. He finished with the order and closed the screens. “How long until food? I’m starving.”

“If you could cook yourself, you wouldn’t have to wait on me for every meal.”

“I wouldn’t have to wait anyway, it’s your fault. You spoiled me with your insisting on eating your from-scratch food every night. I have to mentally prepare myself to eat real food now, and it’s all your fault.”

“Stop complaining, you love it.” 

Arthur didn’t respond. It wasn’t long later that Francis called him to, ‘get his ass into the kitchen, the food was ready.’ He went slowly, to spite Francis, and sat at their small table be the kitchen counter in front of their pasta a few long minutes later. They ate quietly.

Arthur ate much less than Francis did. He had less organic matter to power.

They ate quietly. They had far surpassed the need to comment on this. Arthur held the thought in the back of his mind, though. He ate more slowly to make himself believe he was eating as much as Francis. Francis had invested in smaller plates to give the illusion of the plate holding more. When they went to parties, they could pick and choose as they wished, and Arthur never had to see more than a few dumplings on Francis’ plate at a time. It was all right. If only parties were less stressful, if Francis hadn’t liked cooking so much, they would have perhaps gone to a party every night. They were certainly invited to enough to sustain it.

Francis ate slowly by nature. It took them nearly an hour to finish eating. Arthur brought his book to the table between a bathroom break and he flipped pages between small bites of the pasta and, when the pasta was done, nibbled on the small, chocolaty, squishy dessert Francis had created at some point earlier in the day.

“So really, what did you want with my computer? I didn’t think you cared to go online much.”

“And I thought you hated computers.”

“I do hate computers. And many other things in technology.”

“I was ordering your whore.” 

Francis stopped with his glass of water tilted in his mouth. He set the glass down and spewed water over Arthur.

“Motherfucker!” Arthur shouted, jumping up. “We just fixed my waterproofing, you ass!”

Francis wiped his lip with a napkin. Arthur narrowed his eyes. 

“You what?” said Franics. “You? Ordered a whore. First sneak a whore in a hospital, and now two whores? Do you have a thing that I don’t know about?”

“There are no ‘things,’ Arthur said, glaring down at his wet shirt. “You said you were going to order one so I took the liberty of doing it for you.”

“Is this payback for something?” 

“Don’t say that in front of the whore, he’ll get upset.”

“Who said I wanted a ‘he’ tonight?”

“Francis,” Arthur said, lowering his voice as though speaking to someone who was very slow-hearing. “You love blond boys. You practically drool over them. My brother tried to dye his hair when he noticed. You have a type.” 

“I do not have a type,” Francis said, straightening up in his seat and scowling. “I love all equally.”

“You have a type,” said Arthur, “and it is cute blond boys.”

“Arthur, if you don’t stop this right now, you will regret it.” 

Grinning, Arthur raised his hand and began counting up on his fingers, “Viserys, Jean-Pierre, Jamie Lannister, von Bock, Odinsson, Wendell Bray, both Zwingli siblings, Malfoy, probably Caer Malfoy—

Francis was up and chasing Arthur a moment later. Whatever the fencing team had taught him, it had kept him swift even as the years passed, and it was only with years of practice that Arthur jumped beyond Francis’ reach. Arthur spun and ran into the living room, laughing as Francis fumed and gave chase chased behind him. 

“Arthur!”

“You should be thanking me! I’m helping you get laid!”

“Arthur, I am going to get you, I swear.”

Arthur ducked behind Francis’ chair to play a game of cat and mouse, dodging to one side of the chair when Francis went for the other. When Francis tried to reach over the chair, Arthur stepped back out of his reach again until Francis backed up.

“Pissing you off is the highlight of my day,” Arthur shouted over Francis’ cursing as they dashed past the projected Stacks on the wall. Francis was starting to get breathless while Arthur’s mostly mechanical body kept him physically in top condition. He wasn’t even approaching tired yet. 

“When I catch you, you’re dead,” Francis huffed, snatching at the back of Arthur’s shirt.

Arthur almost said, ‘Yeah right, I wish,’ but refrained. Instead, he just kept running. Something whacked him against the back of the head. 

“Ow, fuck!” He turned to look and saw it was the small metal alarm Francis carried with him. “What the hell?”

It was then that Francis finally tackled him. They fell to the ground with a crash, the small metal coffee table beside Arthur’s chair falling over and books on the nearby shelves rattling. 

Francis’ arms were around Arthur’s waist, crushed under him. It must have hurt, but Arthur couldn’t hear any pained sounds except for Francis’ tired, strained breathing. 

“Not after I’ve just eaten, you bastard,” Francis said. 

Arthur tried to wiggle out from under him, grinning faintly, “I was just doing you a favor.” 

“And now I’m paying it back,” Francis said. 

“Francis?” Arthur said. His grin faded and his eyebrows creased. Just when he was beginning to get concerned he had actually somehow hurt Francis by ordering him a whore, Francis’ hands attacked Arthur’s sides. “FraaAUOOAHAHAHA?” 

“You have so many nerves there,” Francis said. There was awful smirk on his face as he relentlessly tickled Arthurs ribcage and armpits. 

“Get off—hehefuck—OFF—ahaha—damn yooouu—hurk!”

Francis was grinning madly above him, pinning him with his legs and still tickling him, even though he must have been hurt from the fall. Arthur stopped paying attention though as the nerves’ signals overrode everything except his overpowering need to flail and laugh.

Very suddenly, Francis’ hands stilled. 

Arthur continued to giggle slowly, before realizing something had shifted. “aha….Francis?” 

Francis was looking away from Arthur at the doorway, his grin fading. “Ah. Hello. We’re mature adults.”

Arthur looked over to where Francis was staring—the doorframe. The door was open, with the guards stationed outside peering in. Matthew and the second whore were peering inside with them. 

“Oh,” said Arthur. His insides—what bits there were—felt like they had shriveled up into tiny peas. Trying to think of any way to save face, he abruptly kicked up at Francis, knocking him off balance. “I fucking told you to get off me, asshole!” 

Francis fell backwards and landed on his ass. “Ow. Hey. You deserved it. This wasn’t my idea.” 

“How the fuck was this anything but your idea.”

They scrambled back to their feet, glaring at each other. Finally, Francis huffled and walked away, rightening the fallen table on his way to the door to usher the prostitutes in and wave off the guards while Athur stared down at his naval. His shirt was still wet from where Francis intentionally splattered his water. 

Faintly, Arthur heard the new whore whisper, “These guys?” 

He looked over just in time to see Matthew step on the new whore’s foot. 

Francis came back into the room as Arthur dropped his eyes again to the floor. They spoke quickly, briefly, or perhaps it only seemed that way because Arthur was preoccupied with listening to his heart pound in his tin-can chest.

He did not question why he was so embarrassed in front of the whores. He was too busy trying to deal with it. Before he could sort his emotions out, there was a soft hand at his elbow.

“Sir?” Matthew said. “Arthur?”

Arthur cleared his throat quickly. “Good day, Matthew. Sorry. I’m just a tad out of it today.”

“That’s fine,” Matthew said. Though Arthur was only looking at him out of the corner of his eye, he could tell Matthew wasn’t exactly smiling. “How about we go to your room?”

Arthur nodded, feeling dumb, and was lead to his room by Matthew’s hand on his elbow. 

They closed the door to the main room once they were inside his bedroom. 

“Sorry about the mess,” Arthur said, kicking a few magazines out of the path to the bed. “Haven’t cleaned lately.”

“It’s fine, I don’t’ mind,” said Matthew. He shuffled along behind Arthur before hopping on the bed. It bounced slightly beneath him.

“So, the other whore is your brother?” 

“Half brother, sir,” said Matthew. “We don’t do incest kinks, sir. Please.”

“Oh, oh! No, I wouldn’t!” Arthur said, bringing his hands up quickly. “No. God, no, I have brothers, I would never want to… I mean, other people I suppose, I as long as it’s consensual, but….no. I was just asking since I thought I read that and you two look so much alike.”

Matthew nodded, his shoulders slumped and seemingly more relaxed. “Okay… just making sure you knew. It’s in the contract as one of the things we don’t do is all. I wasn’t sure if you’d read it. Some people don’t. Your shirt’s wet.” 

The sudden change of topic took Arthur by surprise. He looked down again, though he already knew his shirt was wet. 

“Ah, yes, it is. It doesn’t really bother me though, it’s fine.” He could actually ignore the dampness, now. The tangle of nerves and sensors in his chest were still picking it up perfectly well, but he had other things he could focus on. Like Matthew’s hair.

Matthew apparently couldn’t focus on other things, though. “I’ll get you something to change into, Sir.”

He smiled and hopped off the bed, making the short walk from the bed to the dresser. “Which drawer?”

“Don’t bother,” said Arthur.

“It’s really no problem.” 

“I don’t want a new shirt,” Arthur said.

Matthew faltered. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“It really doesn’t bother me.” 

“Are you sure?” Matthew said. Arthur nodded. “Arthur, with all do respect, I don’t really want to cuddle you in a wet shirt…” 

Arthur paused. 

Matthew wouldn’t be comfortable cuddling him in a wet shirt. That was… it set a strange knot in his stomach, which rolled through him and left him vaguely cold and nauseous. Matthew wouldn’t be comfortable with him. He could always simply demand Matthew cuddle him regardless, Arthur reminded himself, but that would be. That wasn’t. It wouldn’t be okay if Matthew didn’t want to cuddle him, too. 

“…Third drawer in the wardrobe,” Arthur finally said, his head dipping down and his chin bumping against his chest. 

Matthew came to him a few moments later with a pale blue button-down shirt in his hand. It was crinkled from not being hung up and it was soft from its most recent cleaning. As with all of the shirts the wardrobe, it was long sleeved. Arthur took it from Matthew, breathing deeply. The shirt smelled like lavender—it must have been in one of the loads with one of Francis’ fabric softeners, then.

“Now turn around and watch the door while I change,” Arthur said. 

“Shy?” Matthew grinned as he turned around.

“Quiet, brat,” said Arthur, huffing. But Matthew did turn away, and so Arthur moved his attention from Matthew and instead looked down at the task before him. The button-down was already fully open, but he checked to make sure it wasn’t inside out before setting it out behind himself. He pulled his current damp shirt up and over his head in one movement and tossed it aside to the floor where it landed in a slightly soggy heap. He pulled the button-down over his back and shoulders like a blanket then before beginning the always-frustrating occupation of trying to get his arms through the sleeves.

He heard a quiet gasp. 

Arthur’s head shot up. Matthew had turned his head just enough to be able to peer through the curtains of his bangs to see Arthur’s chest. 

Arthur’s heart stopped. Not literally, he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to, and his body certainly didn’t grow as hot and cold as he perceived it to, but his brain which was the least his own of anything was suddenly completely shot when he saw Matthew, Matthew who nearly seemed to like him, staring at his chest and—“Bitch! What the fuck did I say about looking? Fucking hell!”

Arthur was startled at his own voice, but not as much as Matthew apparently. The man whipped his head back around in the other direction and starting speaking over Arthur rapidly. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you had scars, I was just really surprised. I couldn’t help it. If you’re uncomfortable with me looking I promise I won’t do it again, I just wasn’t expecting it…”

Arthur faltered, the heat falling out from under him. Matthew had finished speaking and was standing silently with his back to Arthur, this time looking resolutely away. It was harder to continue his tirade, even though he still wanted to be angry. He muttered something along the lines of ‘I—well then—g-good then! Don’t, don’t do anything again without my permission,’ but it had sounded thin even to his own ears. He was too distracted by what Matthew had said. That the scars didn’t bother him. 

They bothered Arthur. They bothered him every day. They bothered him when he caught his reflection in the mirror after a shower and they bothered him every time he had to change clothes and there was nowhere to look but down at himself. They had bothered Francis too. For the first few months after the surgery, Francis had touched him only when necessary, and even while learning to be a makeshift surgeon. Arthur knew what he looked like, and it was—it was a swirl of knots where a train had ripped him apart and rustless plating had tried to put him back together.

His chest was not something seen outside of war zones, he had believed. 

Yet here, this capital-city whore had said…

“You may turn around. If it really doesn’t bother you,” Arthur said, his voice returning though it still felt weak in his throat. He released the buttons on the shirt. His fingers tingled vaguely.

Matthew turned on his heel. “Sir?” 

There was a lump in his throat. Arthur swallowed it. “My name’s Arthur. I t…asked you to call me that before.”

“Right. Sorry. Arthur?” Matthew said. 

“Yes?” 

“Did you need anything?” 

Arthur shook his head. Matthew stood where he was for a few more moments, watching, before slowly approaching the bed. Arthur did his best to remain relaxed as he came closer. “Do you need any help buttoning up, Arthur?”

Arthur shook his head. “If it really doesn’t bother you, I’ll leave it open. But you have to take your shirt off as well.”

Matthew nodded and set right to work, slowly unbuttoning his shirt from the top of his collar down to his waistline. 

“…you don’t have to do a strip tease, just… just take the shirt off,” Arthur said. Matthew smiled sheepishly but took the rest of his top off in a much more timely manner. When he was done, he tossed his shirt on the floor not far from where Arthur’s previous shirt was crumpled. There was a moment when Arthur had the chance to look at Matthew’s chest as Matthew stood. 

He was pale—and Arthur had known that. Matthew was pale, not as pale as Arthur himself but certainly darker than Francis, and Francis was not quite as dark as Matthew’s half-brother whore— Matthew was pale and soft. His stomach wasn’t muscled like a soldier’s. He wasn’t sculpted like a graduate fresh out of the Academy. He was round and soft. There was give to him. No scars adorned his chest or stomach. His arms were long and thin, though Arthur could see some muscle in them. Matthew had a body unaccustomed to hardship, Arthur decided. 

Even in the room’s harsh florescent lighting, even with Arthur there, distracted by feeling more naked than anyone else without something to cover the front of his chest, Matthew was… pretty. Cute. Attractive. Handsome. 

Matthew sat, unbidden, beside Arthur in the bed. Their shoulders were almost touching. Arthur’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He could feel the air of the room against his chest. It was infinitely more distracting than his damp shirt could have ever been.

“You’re lovely,” Arthur said. His voice was thin. Matthew smiled though. 

“Thanks,” he said, and lifted a hand to gently touch Arthur’s thigh, as he did. A habit, Arthur assumed, picked up from whoring. “You too.” 

Arthur waited for the laugh. He waited for the hand to pull away in disgust. He waited for Matthew’s face to twist, ever so lightly, to reveal the act. 

None of that came. 

“May I?” Matthew said, his hand coming up to hover a very safe few inches away from Arthur’s stomach. Arthur nodded slowly. He meant to reply out loud, but his voice had gone somewhere far, far away. Matthew ran his hand up Arthur’s chest slowly, lighting touching over all the scars and strange bumps that were in the way, until he came to Arthur’s left shoulder. 

Arthur could no longer stay still at that point. He twisted and pulled Matthew closer, pressing his face into Matthew’s unmarred neck to try and hide the choked gasp which escaped him. Matthew made a quiet yelp but just as quickly wrapped his roaming hand around Arthur, locking him into a hug. Arthur didn’t particularly care if the movement was intentional or out of surprise. Matthew didn’t move his arm away. Arthur let his scarred chest just brush against Matthew’s smooth one as he gasped for air, focusing on the warm body holding him while he struggled not to cry. 

000

The prostitute was laid out on the bed, passed out. His limbs thrown in all directions. His chest rose and fell slowly. The sweat had cooled on his skin. He likely hadn’t expected someone as small and thin as Francis to consistently outlast him. After their third round, he had asked to stop and promptly collapsed into the pile he was at the moment.

Francis was feeling better, though. The prostitute had lasted long enough to get out most of his frustrations—and it was partly Francis’ fault for exhausting him so much in the foreplay, but it was hard to find someone who liked long foreplay as much as Francis did it seemed—but Francis wasn’t quite sure what to blame this sort of repetition on. 

He’d always had an overactive sex drive. He had to learn to outlast his own exhaustion, otherwise he would have never gotten anything done in school. As a handler for Arthur, his work was considerably more stressful, and yet still not nearly in the same manner or way that school had kept him busy. There were no more late night drunken parties to overcome before eight-in-the-morning tests. There were no more near-fistfights breaking out over test scores. There were no more research papers he had to frantically search through topics, information about those topics, or the right words to use, before the deadline hit. There was no more fencing team, and consequently, no more fencing or fencing practice. He had grown soft, most likely, but even after three years of graduation, Francis had yet to find a way to fall asleep at a decent hour. 

He simply had to find different ways of occupying himself, or different ways of exhausting himself. The prostitute had done his best, poor thing. The prostitute had held out as long as he could and done, and when he couldn’t go on anymore, he’d done the responsible thing and signaled when he felt he couldn’t handle another round. And Francis stopped, let him sleep, and moved on to the computer where he now sat, his intranet disconnected in favor of something a little more shiny and new.

His personal cameras had been successfully installed in Arthur’s room. He had filmed a short masturbation porno with them, to test them (and to bribe Ludwig, who still had yet to breach the subject of Feliciano’s celibacy) and after extracting that film and storing it for later use, set up the cameras at various angles in Arthur’s room. 

It was probably wrong to spy on one’s friends like this, but Arthur needed someone to look after him, and perhaps if Francis watched him closely enough, he could figure out what exactly it was that signaled things going wrong with Arthur. Maybe there was a quirk, a hint as to when he would attempt to hurt himself. Maybe there were times when Arthur lay in bed crying for someone to come visit him, and Francis was unaware. Maybe Empire officials came while they were out controlling the Angel and rifled around Arthur’s room for who knew what—perhaps contraband? 

At the moment though, Arthur was asleep. The prostitute, Matthew, was curled against Arthur’s bare chest. 

It was sweet, in a strange way. It was as sweet as a whore hired to cuddle sleeping on Arthur’s bare chest could possibly be. 

It was a good thing, Francis decided. It had to be a good thing that Arthur had decided to trust this prostitute enough to open up to him—not literally yet, but perhaps one day it would be extremely literal. Arthur’s chest rose and fell slowly. His eyelids fluttered in a dream. His arm was curled around the prostitute’s shoulders. He looked very organic, but Francis wondered if the prostitute could hear the faint buzz of machinery in Arthur’s chest when he pressed his ear against the right spot. 

Francis watched for a while and then sighed. There wasn’t much else to do that night. He had cleaned the dishes and fucked the prostitute. It was too late at night to bother Ludwig and there was only so long he could go watching his friend sleep without getting bored. It was time to try to sleep again. He closed the computer screen, confident that the tape would continue to record all through the night. If he was lucky, Arthur would make stupid faces in his sleep.

Francis rose and stretched. His back popped. He slid his boxers back on—they had fallen off the side of the bed at some point earlier in the night—and climbed up onto the covers next to the prostitute. 

He was just laying down when, from the living room floor when Francis had thrown the device, the siren alarm for the Angel Assault went off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Science:
> 
> -….it actually takes light 100,000 years to get from one side of the Milky Way to another, so for a galactic empire (I’m retconning the “intergalactic” thing. It’s too much room, even for MY sci-fi. ) to have a not particularly well-off family still able to send emails from one side of the galaxy to another within a week, while it seems long to us, is actually a RIDICULOUS show of their technological prowess. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, remember. So if the Milky Way is actually a relatively small galaxy (and compared to Andromeda, it is) and it would take something like 100,000 years for an email to be sent from a computer on one side to a hypothetical computer on the other, barring other obstructions and matter, atoms, etc…. 100,000 years is 5217745 weeks and almost 5 days. What I’m trying to get at here is that the Empire has surpassed traveling at the speed of light. They have successfully done the thing where space moves around the ship, rather than the ship moving through space, so sort of like making a personal wormhole? which also (shhhhhh in my mind) negates that pesky time dilution thing, which is in the back of my head whenever I watch space opera stuff. 
> 
> And the Empire has applied that to information dispersion. The Empire has provided networks which allow FTL travel, for both transportation and information. This is, essentially, the easy way to explain why the Empire can tap into literally any information connected to their network (and there are no other networks really.) Fortunately, there are only so many people monitoring the information input, so they have to put certain ‘troublemakers’ on the top of the list. Francis and Ludwig have known each other openly since their years in school, so their conversations are very low on the list of things to look for incriminating evidence on. And besides, who would want to be the poor intern who had to go to the Godly Emperor Romulus and tell him that Feli’s boyfriend was having an affair? Not any intern I know of. Did you know crucifixion is considered one of the most painful ways to die?
> 
> NASA has more info on FTL travel here: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/
> 
> 000
> 
> Other notes: 
> 
> -Kokolo, Cam’s lion (…I’ve largely given up on finding certain nations names. I had an awful time just trying to find Bantu names and the ones I did find I wasn’t sure if they were legit or even if they fit or not. So for now, he is Cam, future spaceguard extraordinaire. ) got his name from the APH wiki, because he is apparently a canon character despite how I have never seen him outside of the World Cup strips. “Kokolo” was a band which was trying to reclaim the word ‘kokolo’ which was a derogatory word used in Spanish Harlem and parts of the Carribean to talk about Latinos of African descent who enjoyed Afro music. I assume this is where Himaruya got the name from.
> 
> -Hathor is the Egyptian goddess who personifies joy, feminine love, and motherhood. Considering Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world, according to Greek mythology, and also Helen and Hathor are alliterative, I figured they would be suitable human names for Mama Greece and Mama Egypt.
> 
> -Arthur’s body is basically a mess of varying amounts of skin graft scars, stitching scars, and possibly some of Archibald McIndoe’s plastic surgery piping to help keep alive the skin that’s basically largely just resting on metal. He’s not exactly conventionally beautiful. But he’s him.
> 
> -Part of the thing for the Empire’s prostitution program is that it’s supposed to be safe. The prostitutes are supposed to be cared for and well paid and their clients don’t have to worry about things like spies, thieves, STIs or pregnancy (unless that’s their kink, in which case there’s probably a division for that.) Obviously, this doesn’t work out in practice. Some of the managers and customers abuse their prostitutes, and Al and Matt are spies. The ideas are still in place though, so when Al asks to stop… well, Francis is not a complete asshole all the fucking time. God, Francis. Who am I kidding. He’s an asshole all the time, but he’s an asshole who respects people’s bodily integrity. Which if you must be an asshole I would love for you to be that kind of asshole.
> 
> -This chapter has possibly the most appropriate title song I’ve found for this so far.
> 
> 000
> 
> I’m getting theme songs out for everyone in this fic. And I will reveal them as I deem them most appropriate. Hopefully Francis’ song will come to light in the next one or two chapters. But for this chapter?
> 
> Alfred’s song is:  
> Counting Stars by One Republic


	6. First Day Of Sun - God is an Astronaut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many ways of dealing with mourning. Some lock themselves away. Some will do anything to avoid experiencing it ever again.
> 
> Warnings For This Part: Mentions of violence and death. Descriptions of war zones. Hostage situations.

Romano didn’t venture outside his room much anymore.

There wasn’t anything out there for him. At least, that’s what he seemed to think ever since their Great Lord Romulus sent Marie away. If Romano had wilted during the breakup, it was nothing compared to the slump he had fallen into after Marie’s disappearance.

He was no more pleased when he learned that his brother Feliciano was now dating, and quite content with his love life.

“Fratello, please,” said Feliciano, reaching out a hand to touch Romano’s cheek. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”

Romano swatted away the offending hand without so much as looking at his brother. He was focused instead on the projection on his wall—an episode of one of his favorite crime dramas was playing.

He had dealt with his mourning by redecorating his room multiple times since Marie’s disappearance. At the moment, large swaths of deep red fabric covered his windows and plush, soft cushions littered his bed and chairs. His room was lit by several shaded lamps which gave the room a soft glow as though it were in a perpetual twilight. The bed was king sized and plush enough to swallow a man into its feathery folds.

“What did I do?” Feliciano whined, crawling up into the bed beside Romano despite being shoved and frowned at. He snuggled up into Romano’s side, wrapping his arms around his brother’s waist. “Did I say something wrong yesterday? I’m sorry about forgetting about whatever it was!”

Romano pried Feliciano’s hands off of his waist and shoved him away. “Stop.”

“Noooo!”

Romano was, and always had been, a loner in many ways. When they were little, he would prefer to hide behind his father’s legs instead of facing a crowded room. Feliciano would tackle that same crowded room with abandon, greeting every person his tiny legs could carry him to. Not Romano, though. For Romano, a crowded room was an obstacle course. A dangerous place. A certifiable executable threat, even. It was only made worse when their parents were killed at a public gathering in Pompeii. The shooter had been mercilessly tortured and publicly executed, but no number of promises and years could ease the bloodstains on Feliciano’s poor big brother’s mind.

There was a theory that the rebels had put a crime syndicate up to the assassination. Paid them. Bribed them. Threatened them, perhaps. Others said that was preposterous and that for once, the rebels weren’t involved with the threat on the Emperor’s family. There were no rebels in Pompeii, after all. If there were rebels and they were capable of managing an assassination, Feliciano’s parents, no matter how royal their blood, would not have been the prime targets. All subsequent investigation found no trace of rebel intelligence or interference, only a long history connecting the shooter with the mid-planet crime family which had taken the fall.

And they took the fall indeed. They took the fall all the way down to the last child of the last recruit. The resulting power vacuum was never addressed, to Feliciano’s knowledge. Pompeii had a war to fight. Wartime was not the time to get involved with internal power disputes as long as no one directly challenged the emperor or his progeny ever again.

The deaths of their parents had further reaching affects, though. For all of Pompeii it had ended with the trails, and for the Emperor, it had ended when the last nail was put in the last coffin and the bodies were hurtled out towards the center of the galaxy and the outskirts of the Empire. For Romano, however, it was the beginning of his Thing.

The thing with the police dramas.

All of the police dramas.

Romano had, in fact, opened up otherwise off limit achieves to plunge their depths for old police dramas from eon past. He could recite law in his sleep. He could tell the history of police procedurals all the way back through every single godforsaken known century. He could lay in bed for hours watching the new shows come on TV and marathoning them, screaming at them and hurtling his pillows sometimes when the TV strayed too far from the actual law code. He could probably die if he kept it up for too long, though, so usually on the third day of isolation, Feliciano intervened.

“I want to spend time together!” Feliciano screeched, rolling on top of Romano. “Come on! You’ve been in here for days and I’ve missed youuu. Do you even remember what a sun is like anymore?”

“No,” Romano said, rolling and kicking and shoving to get Feliciano off of his chest. He only succeeded in jostling his younger brother. “No, and I don’t care, I just want some motherfucking peace and quiet for once and no godforsaken sun is going to keep me from it!”

“You’ve had peace and quiet for three whole days!” Feliciano made sure to raise his voice while he was right beside Romano’s ear, so Romano would be able to tell the difference between peace and quiet and an intervention. “What you need is less peace and quiet. You need loudness and excitement now! And exercise and—” Feliciano almost said ‘pretty girls,’ but restrained himself, not wanting to see his brother cry, “—a-and sunshine, and flower crowns, and good food! Or at least, you need to go to another room. How long has it been since you pooped?”

“I have a fucking bathroom literally right there,” Romano said, not bothering to point.  “What kind of fucking question is that? What’s wrong with you?”

Feliciano laughed and was finally shoved off the side of the bed. He landed on the floor with a plop and continued to laugh there, instead, rolling about and clutching his sides. Romano sat above him, face ruby red and practically vibrating with anger. But anger was better than passive apathy, so Feliciano continued laughing until Romano jumped off the bed and tried to smother him with one of the many lush red pillows.

“You little shithead!” Romano shouted, struggling to shove his feather pillow down Feliciano’s gaping piehole. “This isn’t funny. I am going to strangle you one day if you keep being so—soo—”

“ _Cute_?” Feliciano said, beaming at how helpful he was, even as he struggled to hold Romano’s pillow at arm’s length.

“As if!”

Romano shoved his pillow to the left, sending Feliciano’s arms splaying in the same direction. Before Feliciano could pull his arms back in, Romano snatched a second pillow on the bed and proceeded to smack it into his little brother’s awful face.

  
“Waa!” Feliciano flailed. “Fratello, stop that!”

“No,” Romano said. He brought the pillow down again with a satisfying  _whap_. “Hell fucking no you shit for brains. If you didn’t want this, then  _you_  should have stopped a long, long time ago, motherfucker!”

  
Feliciano shrieked and rolled around on the floor, trying to dodge Romano’s swats. They almost didn’t hear the knock on the door, but Romano had grown accustomed to certain sounds after living the last three years in a cave of a room, and paused with the pillow hoisted above his head, ready to be brought back down on Feliciano’s face at a moment’s notice.

“What?” Romano called to the door as Feliciano took the opportunity to peek out through the protective barrier of hand and arm he’d built around his face.

“My Lord,” the guard said. “There’s a Beilschmidt here to see Feliciano, Sir.”

“Send him in,” Feliciano said immediately.

“Send him away,” Romano said at the same time.

The guard reacted on instinct, mostly, and opened the door immediately at Feliciano’s behest. Feliciano technically held more power, as the active heir and better known political face, while Romano had hidden. Even though since the matter concerned Romano’s territory, as much as a room could be considered territory, the weight and familiarity of Feliciano’s sway had bitten Romano in the ass before, as it always did when they both issued a command at roughly the same time. God help the soldiers who received two contradictory commands and didn’t know the apparent pecking order. 

This one did though, and the result was a brawny, blond Beilschmidt standing bemusedly blinking in Romano’s doorway.

“Get the fuck out of my room,” Romano said on instinct.

Ludwig came in, looking around, his eyes darting from side to side. “Ah, sorry, I was just here to, to pick up…”

Feliciano leapt to his feet, almost knocking Romano over in the process, and sprinted into Ludwig’s arms.

“Ludovico!” he said, wrapping his arms and legs around Ludwig’s. “I didn’t know you were coming here.

“I, ah, I was directed here,” Ludwig said, blushing and doing his best to stay upright. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I wasn’t told this was your brother’s room.”

“Yeah, so you’d better back the fuck out right now, before I throw you out on your ass instead, bastard,” Romano said, plopping back onto the bed and scowling deeply at Ludwig. Feliciano was starting to become increasingly concerned about the future of Romano’s face—he was going to get deep wrinkles before either of them hit thirty, at this rate.

“He doesn’t mean that,” Feliciano said, leaning up to give Ludwig a kiss on the cheek.

“I mean it,” Romano said, his voice lowering. “Don’t fucking kiss him.”

“Why not?” Feliciano’s grin grew wicked and he wrapped his arms around Ludwig’s neck more securely, hoisting himself up to nuzzle.

“Feliciano,” Romano said. “Feliciano, I am going to throw both of you out.”

“Nooo you won’t.” Feliciano wiggled.

“Ah, Feliciano, perhaps we should….” Ludwig began.

Romano cut him by chucking a pillow at their heads. “Get out! No PDA in my room!” Feliciano yelped as another pillow hit him in the ear. “Out! Out!”

Ludwig scooped Feliciano up in both arms and carried him out of the room, cradling him and shielding him from the barrage of feathery decorations. He jogged past the guards in the hall, who began tossing the escaped pillows back inside at twice the rate Romano was tossing them out and slammed the door shut again.

Once they were a whole hall away, Ludwig set Feliciano on the floor again. He stepped out of Ludwig’s arms delicately and took a moment to rearrange his rumpled clothing.

“Is everything back in place?” he asked, turning around for Ludwig to see. Ludwig nodded immediately, his face still red. “Good. …I’m sorry about that! I thought he was in a better mood still than he might’ve actually been!”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I really upset him with the kissing thing,” Feliciano said, putting a finger to his mouth and worrying at it. “I was just so excited to see you! You didn’t tell me you were coming to the palace to visit. I thought we were both supposed to tell each other before any visit?”

Ludwig’s blush deepened and he held his arms up quickly. “We were! I just… that rule was for if I had a meeting with… anyone. But I asked the guards and they told me you weren’t busy and directed me to your brother’s room. I truly am very sorry for intruding.”

“It’s okay, I forgive you… but you still should’ve stuck to your rule!”

  
Ludwig bowed his head while Feliciano pouted.

“Can I make it up to you somehow?”

“Hmmm,” Feliciano crossed his arms and looked away as he pouted.

“Any way?”

“Well,” Feliciano said, taking a breath so deep his whole upper body puffed outwards. “I guess there is  _one_ thing that might make it up to me…”

“Name it,” Ludwig said, looking up again.

“Piggyback.”

“…Feliciano.”

“Piggyback ride or bust.”

“…”

Feliciano climbed up on Ludwig’s back and made himself comfortable there and directed him down the halls.

“Romano’s still upset about Marie,” Feliciano said as they walked. Ludwig shuffled a bit to shift his grip on Feliciano’s legs, sliding his hands a little higher up on Feliciano’s thighs. Feliciano ignored it and continued to pick at Ludwig’s hair as he spoke. “I really wish we could just find out what happened to her so he can have closure, but everything after their breakup went into the classified section that even  _we_  can’t get into. So he’s just really upset. And I probably shouldn’t have kissed you in front of him.”

Ludwig nodded. “That would be upsetting. But how long has it been since she vanished?”

“Almost three years, I think,” Feliciano said with a sigh. “I’m really worried about him… he doesn’t come out much anymore and he’s been skipping so many of his lessons… what if we have to run the Empire and he’s not prepared?”

  
“I’m sure it will be some time before you have to run anything, Feliciano,” Ludwig said. His tone made it clear that he almost couldn’t imagine Feliciano in charge of much anything more complicated than a food stand.

  
“Still,” Feliciano said as Ludwig’s hands crept higher again, stretching his arms out above his head and almost throwing Ludwig off balance until Ludwig’s hands once again tightly gripped his knees as a counterweight instead of his thighs.

“Would you rather he just forgot about her?”

“No!” Again, Feliciano’s’ sudden movement nearly threw Ludwig off balance and he was forced to stumble about trying to stay safely upright. “Of course not! It’s super important to remember things like that! Because you have to take care of people who go through painful things too, and if you understand stuff like death and illness and loneliness, then you can understand them better and help them out better!”

Ludwig nodded slowly. “I suppose…as someone with a medical license, I cannot disagree with your logic.”

“I didn’t mean it medically,” Feliciano said, blinking his large brown eyes slowly.

“I know,” Ludwig said. They walked in silence for the rest of the hall. Ludwig paused at the fork, waiting for Feliciano to give him directions and ignoring any raised eyebrows they may have been getting from the guards. “…this is somewhat related, but I did have something to talk to you about, though. That was why I came to visit. I have good news.”

“Oh?”

“I’m being promoted.”

Feliciano broke into a wide smile. “That’s wonderful! What’re you going to be doing?”

A frail smile graced Ludwig’s face. “Ah, well, that’s what’s actually wonderful. My research grant is increasing and I’ve been commissioned to experiment more with the bioelectronics we started developing after the creation of Angel. We’re hoping that if we can move along the path we’ve chosen, we might be able to modify humans to be more sturdy. Stop aging. Destroy illness. Cheat death…”

They fell silent in the halls once again. Ludwig paused. Feliciano wrapped his arms more tightly around Ludwig’s neck.

“Wow,” he said at last. “ _Wow_. That’s really cool!”

Ludwig breathed a sigh of relief as Feliciano’s voice returned to him.

“Oh my goodness! That would be really, really, cool! If everyone could get that there would be so many less reasons to be sad! Especially now that we have a whole universe to populate and a bunch of planets to get supplies from and… that would be amazing, if everyone had infinite time…”

Ludwig nodded with him. “It’s too expensive right now for that, though. Perhaps even too expensive for the people of Pompeii. Still, I’m very excited at all the possibilities it will open up with—”

“—But wait,” Feliciano said, tugging at Ludwig’s slicked hair once again to silence him. “What good is it if no one can use it?”

Ludwig cleared his throat slowly and patted Feliciano’s knee as they walked. “I’m sure our great Lord will think of something. He’s largely in charge of the project—totally in charge, actually. It’s a great advantage for me. He’s agreed to provide test subject volunteers and pay them, as well as increasing my budget and offering other engineers and surgeons who have far more valuable field experience than I do… it’s really up to him what to do with this, once we’ve perfected the operation.”

Feliciano slipped off his back.

000

When Francis was nine, his sister had discovered a wounded rabbit in the woods, its left hind leg destroyed. It lay on the ground shrieking until she lifted it up and cradled it in her arms. Perhaps it was too terrified to speak. She carried it to Francis—she was young at the time and understood her older brother to be wiser than her in certain aspects. Dealing with dying rabbits was certainly one of them.

Francis disagreed. Desperate for advice, called their absent father.

Lord Bonnefoy was a military man away from home. When contact was established, he was in the breakroom of his ship, his uniform unbuttoned, his unwashed hair limply framing his face. There were large bags under his eyes. He said that if Francis wanted to help the rabbit, he would put it out of its misery.

“How? There aren’t any sedatives or guns in the house.”

“If there aren’t any guns or sedatives, go find a hammer or a rock.”

Lord Bonnefoy was injured in the final battle of SerenityValley two months later. He drowned in the blood from puncture wounds in his lungs three weeks after Francis first moved into his dorm.

The three months before and after the start of his Academy career set his personality more solidly than any number of years of emotional development. He would sabotage his classmates’ camps in Troop Care and Management to spare his own simulated men. He haunted the history section of the library around exam time at the expense of his own health, and left only for fencing, and was forced to allow his fencing team to slip him energy bars and small drinks in the otherwise no-rations-allowed library. In Strategy, he either won his mock battles or fought to the very last man. There were many pyrrhic victories. He was nothing like Arthur.

Arthur Kirkland Focused in Chemical Weaponry, Espionage, and Strategy. They met only in class and in the library, where Kirkland’s study of the chemical weapons on Earth That Was left him trapped beside Francis in the ancient history section for days at a time.

They fucked, once, in the old and crumbling stacks of books. It was slow and gentle. It was quiet. It was Arthur’s first and—as far as Francis knew—his only time. Francis’ memory of it was hazy; he had been sleep deprived already, and the slow fuck had taken the last wind out of him. Francis had known Arthur for five years at the time. They were fifteen and Francis had fucked many people before with a much worse rest afterwards.

They did not date. They did not speak of their tryst afterwards, except to quietly mumble to each other, still naked and huddled on the floor, that they were probably better off as rivals.

Arthur beat Francis in Strategy—he won more battles than anyone. He saved the most number of his troops. He spared the most rebels. He lost the most wars.

He was unwilling to get his hands dirty. He was unwilling to kill unnecessary men. He was unwilling to sabotage and collaborate, and his final dissertation in Chemical Weapons was a blazing tirade against their application.

Arthur had no concept of what it was to decide between to live with guilt or to live with the consequence of choice.

Francis had lived with such options solidly tucked in the back of his mind ever since he was nine years old and picked up a hammer on his father’s orders. He had lived with that guilt and ever since told himself that the burden of choice was much easier to bear.

And Francis made many choices for Arthur, now that Arthur was no longer capable of making them himself. He organized their schedule, he argued on Arthur’s behalf, he bartered with Ludwig Beilschmidt, he kept the suicide attempts quiet, and he called Matthew Williams into the apartment in the middle of the day while Arthur was undergoing a routine medical and engineering inspection.

The spy was ushered in by the guards mutely, and looked around with his wide eyes before the door closed around him.

“Is Arthur all right, sir?” he said. “I thought he was usually out here waiting for me.”

“He’s busy at the moment,” Francis told him. “We’re a little bit off schedule. Do you mind coming with me until he gets here?”

“Of course not,” the spy said, quickly following as Francis walked to his own bedroom. He opened the door for the spy and shut the door firmly once they were both inside. Francis had cleaned his room recently; there wasn’t much on the floor between his plush bed and the wall. His desk was pushed to the corner. He stood near the entrance where there was the most floorspace clear while the spy went to his bed and sat.

“What was it you wanted to talk about?” the spy said, smiling coyly at Francis and folding his legs with a slow carefulness that bordered on inappropriate. A true vixen if Francis had ever seen one, and he laughed at himself in his head. Francis was for the first time thankful for Arthur’s natural prudishness; who knows what might have happened if the man sitting on the bed before Francis had successfully slept with Arthur or wormed his way into Arthur’s heart. It was already a small wonder nothing worse had befallen Arthur for how long he spent with the false whore.

“I had a few words planned out for you about the rebellion,” Francis said.

The spy paled. It was impressive, considering his skin was already bleached from the last three years under capitol’s indoor lights. His smile faltered. “Sir, what? I’m sorry? I didn’t understand that.”

To the spy’s credit, he did not run out of the room or shuffle to put his feet more firmly on the floor, which would have been about as damning as a confession. It was clear he hadn’t been expecting any sort of confrontation, though. Perhaps he thought he had done nothing he was at risk of being caught from—so the last night’s escapades had probably started before Francis had installed the cameras.

Francis circled in front of Matthew like a crow circled a carcass, and locked the door, the only escape route. The spy’s shoulders hunched up towards his ears.

“I admit, it’s clever.” Francis said, returning to stand before Matthew. “With all the screening whores have to go through, no one would be paying much attention to you when searching out a spy. How did you pass the background checks? Or are you really a traitor from my home?”

Matthew swallowed quietly, his eyes wide and mouth parted just so. “Sir, please, I don’t understand why you’re accusing me of—of—”

“An Angel assault occurred last night,” Francis said. “Did you know about it?”

Matthew shook his head frantically.

“Do you know what happened?”

He shook his head even more. 

“The rebel forces retreated mere minutes before the assault was put into effect,” Francis said, looking idly at his fingernails and the way Matthew’s posture slumped very slightly in something that looked like relief. “All over the galaxy, actually. Any significant force of rebel troops in combat fled from their battlefields, all within less than an hour. They pulled off world like their lives depended on it. Did you know? On average, it takes a little more than ten minutes to prepare the Angel to activate, twenty to thirty more for the orders to go to commutations, plus travel time and however long it takes for our troops to execute the orders. The system for conveying information to our troops is the fastest information pathway in existence. Do you understand the implications of that?”

Matthew shook his head once more. He was trembling.

“It means, someone sent a warning to the rebels before the Angel was even hooked up.” Francis reached into his pant’s pocket and pulled out a small case for transporting memory cards, the cards displayed inside were not much larger than his thumb and as thin as a piece of paper.  “And while I can’t speak for what your brother may have done, you were caught on tape contacting someone moments after Arthur and I disembarked.”

Matthew trembled. His eyes widened and his knuckles gripping the bedsheet had gone white. He lunged. He threw himself from the bed, fists up, only to be sidestepped by Francis and jabbed in the back with an elbow. He tumbled to the ground, narrowly missing a bedpost. He scrambled to stand again as Francis reached down and dragged him upright by the hair only to bash his head against the wall.

“Ach!”

While the spy was reeling, Francis jabbed him in the guts with his elbow. Matthew doubled over with a gasp.

“Stop that and I won’t hurt you again.” Francis stood much taller when Matthew was on the floor. His hand went to the back of Matthew’s neck, his fingertips trailed lightly, threateningly, over the boy’s spine. “They really taught you nothing about how to fight hand to hand, did they?”

To his surprise, Matthew did respond, shaking his head once again.

“A pity. It’s a useful skill,” Francis said. “Will you cooperate now?”

Matthew took a shuddering breath and crumbled lower into himself. Francis decided to take that as a ‘yes’ and removed his hand from Matthew’s neck.

“You searched through Arthur’s room. Multiple times?”

A nod.

“I assume you know his job by now?”

A second nod, slower this time. Matthew’s eyes were hidden by his hair.

“Your brother is your accomplice?”

“No,” Matthew whispered. Francis’s eyebrows went up.

“Really, then? Well. That works out fine for me, anyway.” Matthew’s head shot up immediately to lock eyes with Francis’. Francis grinned. “Oh, he’s coming here, too. I’d say he will be here in about half an hour.”

Matthew’s breath caught audibly. He glanced around the room, searching for a clock of some kind no doubt. There were none. Francis kept no clocks in the apartment.

“What do you want?” Matthew said in a wheeze, his breath still in the process of coming back to him. His glare was no less venomous for being breathless. If anything, he seemed to be putting even more effort into it.

“I want you to contact your rebel leaders and bargain something with them for me. I will give you two days to do this and resume contact with me about their decision. Consider your brother’s wellbeing—and your own—when you contact them. But he won’t be leaving my apartment anytime soon.”

Matthew was pressing his lips so tightly together they had turned white as well. He clutched his injured stomach and the only thing that seemed to be keeping him on the floor was the lack of air in his lungs and Francis’ frown, which promised to do worse than a little bruise on his abdomen if Matthew dared try to fight again.

A long moment passed. “I suggest you contact your leaders quickly,” Francis said.

“Fine,” the spy whispered. “Fine. Okay. I’ll do it. Tell me what you want me to bargain for.”

“I want two things,” Francis said.

“Yes?”

Francis held up two fingers and folded them down as he spoke. “I want an escort provided for myself and Arthur to smuggle the both of us out of the Empire.”

Matthew’s glare broke and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“ _Secondly_ ,” Francis said. “I want guaranteed asylum within the rebellion. Again for both Arthur and myself. Neither of us are to be harmed in any manner regardless of our previous affiliation with the Empire, regardless of what we have or may not have done, regardless of anything. There will be no medical examinations that are not explicitly agreed to. There will be no testing or screenings of any sort.”

“Wait,” Matthew said, leaning forward and staring up at Francis again. “Wait, wait, are you asking me for—?”

“To negotiate aiding our escape,” Francis said. “We need to get out of this Empire as quickly as humanly possible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:
> 
> While writing this I realized that people who aren’t dyrimthespeaker won’t recognize that I’m doing a thing in Angel that I do in all of my writing. So this is for all the people who are reading this and haven’t read my other stuff: I have a thing that I do. It’s a sibling thing. People have noticed I’m doing a lot more with brotherliness than romance so far. That’s me doing my Sibling Thing. I do it a lot. If you read my stuff you’re gonna get a lot of it. My sibling thing. It’s actually really bad.
> 
> \- in canonverse, Arthur would be the dirtiest fighter ever, but considering the extremes that the Angel takes him to I ask everything sigh and just mutter “AU creative liberties” under their breaths while shaking their heads slowly from side to side.
> 
> -Francis in this is a very interesting character for me. He makes all the choices opposite of what I would do or have done, but for the exact same reasons.
> 
> -dang man germany speaks like a literal translation of a polite character from an anime with the words put in an order that makes sense in English like that’s it that’s the way he talks
> 
> -yo guess what, Arthur’s demisexual in this AU hell yeah


	7. Fireside - Arctic Monkeys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings: minor violence, discussion of kidnapping/ransom. Smuggling.)

There was a bit of tension at first. Francis had fucked Alfred until he slept, handcuffed him to the bed and gagged him just in case. Francis left and locked his room just in time to pick up Arthur, who he told Matthew had suddenly come down with a terrible illness and would be unable to make it to their appointment that day. He’d settled Arthur down with some sleeping medication—and resigned himself that he’d have to call the guards into the apartment to help carry Arthur to the machine if there was a call for an assault tonight—and returned to his room to the newly-awake, newly-bound prostitute, who stared up at him from the bed with wide, angry, frightened blue eyes.

“Relax,” said Francis. The prostitute did not relax. Francis sat on the bed beside him. He looked him over. He probably should have redressed Alfred before binding him, but it was a little late for that now. “You’re a spy for the rebellion?”

It turned out that Alfred was the same caliber liar as Matthew was. Instead of denial, he struggled all the harder against his bonds.

“I’m not going to torture you or turn you in. I just need you to cooperate for a while. You’ll be free to go in two days at most.”

Alfred did stop struggling then, but the tension had far from drained out of him. He lay on the bed naked and as taut as a wire, watching Francis with his bright blue eyes.

“I’m going to take your gag out,” Francis said. “Please don’t scream. I just didn’t want you to cause a loud fuss when you woke. The walls are soundproofed but I didn’t want to accidentally startle Arthur, regardless.”

Alfred remained still, his eyes watching Francis’ hands as they came up to his face and removed the gag.

“Startle _Arthur?_ ” were the first words out of Alfred’s mouth. He spat them, his eyes narrowed dangerously and his back arching up in an attempt to rise up and threaten. “What the _fuck_ , asshole, if you’re not going to turn me then you don’t need to tie me up!”

“I just explained why I had to,” Francis said, “I didn’t—”

“—I don’t care,” Alfred said. “I’m just—going—to—!” He began to jerk one arm in particular harshly against its bond until Francis was concerned enough about injury that he leaned down to untie it. He succeeded, and Alfred’s fist flew free of his bond to knock Francis upside the jaw. “There!”

By the end, they were both panting, Alfred with exertion and Francis with pain.

“I feel better now,” Alfred declared quite calmly.

“Good.” Francis groaned and held his face. “Fuck.”

Alfred watched him, not apologizing, but at least much calmer now that he had gotten his hit in. His freed hand lay by his side, his fingers opening and closing slowly, getting the feeling back in them. He said, “Still not going to turn me in?

“No,” said Francis, “But I may strangle you.”

“I can live with that,” Alfred said. Then, At Francis’ look, “You didn’t say you’d strangle me to _death._ So I can live with that.”

“You’re funny,” Francis said, not laughing.

“Yep. Now what’s going on?” said Alfred.

“Your brother’s doing me a favor right now.”

“And I’m leverage?”

Francis tried to keep his face neutral, but Alfred wasn’t bothering with that, instead choosing to glare and scowl up at Francis. Francis took a deep breath and explained what was going on—what he felt capable of explaining. He left out all reasons he had running through his mind for the last few weeks and he left out the beating he’d given Matthew before there was any cooperation. He wasn’t a monster, just desperate, he told himself. There was no shame in beating an attacker back, and when Matthew had lunged, Matthew had been an attacker.

Still, he untied Alfred as he spoke and handed the spy the clothes that were still crumpled on the floor.

“And what’re you going to do if the Empire catches up?” Alfred said, rubbing his wrists and looking decidedly less upset. “What then?”

“Then look at it this way,” said Francis, “Your rebel group will have time to act without fearing the Angel. It’s everything you could’ve hoped for.”

“And if they kill you?”

“Which ‘they?’” Francis said.

“The Empire,” said Alfred.

“Then I will probably die,” said Francis.

“And what about Arthur?”

Francis had no idea what his death might do to his old rival.

“That’s a chance he and I will have to take.”

  
Alfred sat docilely once he was untied, accepting food and water and escorted bathroom trips for two whole days until Francis received the message from Matthew confirming the time of extraction.

Then, he let Alfred go on his way.

Francis sat in his empty bedroom, head in his hands, and watched the video feed from the other room where Matthew lay, curled against Arthur’s bare chest.

Francis lay awake in wait alone.

000

He escorted Arthur out of their apartment at roughly midnight. He had asked Arthur to keep an eye on his computer’s clock for him, and Arthur had.

The strangest thing about leaving was that Francis noticed the guards. He had walked through the doors of their apartment for years without giving them a second thought. They had just existed, the guards, eternal constructs outside their apartment who occasionally intervened when Francis had to push the emergency assistance button. Now, though, they came to life and were very real, very tangible, very dangerous. Funny, how Francis felt like a fugitive now before he had even done anything truly horrendous.

He had already done enough to warrant punishment. Sleeping with Ludwig would have been enough. Masking the suicides. Not reporting Matthew. Contacting the rebellion. Francis’ anxiety only grew as he realized what a lopsided trial he might have built for himself, but it vanquished any lingering doubt in him that fleeing was exactly what he had to do.

They left the apartment without incident in their military dress uniforms and took a cab to a restaurant nearby the space port.

Pompeii was a very cluttered city with its buildings of wood, stones, and gold, spiraling upwards into the faintly purple sky. It was hot and bright on the equator of the planet, but around the airfield, the skyscrapers all fell away and made room for smaller buildings, opening up a clear path for the spacecrafts to fly. The restaurant they visited was three blocks away from the space port, well inside the height-regulated zone. Almost as though making up for where it was forbidden to grow upwards, the restaurant was wide and stretched over most of the block it occupied. It was made of a dark red wood and painted with white and gold accents. The door was framed by columns.

The party was heavily attended, apparently largely by military officials above a certain rank and family members. Prostitutes filled in the gaps between people, looping their arms around necks and hanging from people’s lips. The guests of honor were a married couple from two relatively influential families—or at least, relatively extensive ones. The Hedervarys and the Edelsteins were known to be very rich and very showy, but the pair in military garb who greeted the guests at the door were gaunt-faced. They looked as though the time they had spent at the front may have spared their lives, but not much else.

Francis steered Arthur past them as politely as he could manage, introducing himself and sending Arthur towards the expansive snack table, trying very hard to not think of how long it might be before he had another good meal. Francis at least had time to mentally prepare himself. In this case, Arthur could be afforded no such luxury.

Francis stayed close to Arthur, loading up his palm-sized plate at the buffet, eating the morsels and doing his best to relish it while he still could, but the nervous energy bubbling in his stomach made that difficult.

A young man in a pressed red suit and small top hat set at a jaunty angle chatted with him for a short time, asking Francis’ name and how he knew, ‘that bitch,’ as he referred to their Hedervary host. He introduced himself as ‘Ro,’ with a snaggletoothed grin, and with an enthusiastic closed-hand shake, handed Francis what he claimed was a rather large business card before speeding off to chat up another guest.

When Francis looked down at the weight in his hands, he found not a business card, but two small passes for the space port and an information card about the flight. Francis glanced at the boarding time and gate number before hastily shoving them in his pocket, where cameras would not be able to spot them.

He shouldered his way through a thick crowd before finding Arthur again.

“Grab some food,” Francis said, “We have to go.”

Arthur froze, his eyes widening, “Wait, there’s not a—I didn’t hear your alarm—”

“There’s not,” Francis said, putting both his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes. “But I’m going to have to ask you to trust me a lot for a while, all right? We’ve got to go.”

Arthur watched him warily, his green eyes faintly glowing with mechanics. Then, he said, “Grab food?”

“Wrap them in napkins, that may be best,” Francis said. Arthur nodded and returned to the buffet table, snatching up several of the choicest samples, wrapping them in napkins and slipping them into his inner-coat pocket.  Francis did the same. Then, when they brushed shoulders again, Francis took Arthur by the elbow and steered him towards the exit. They paused next to Hedervary—her hair was military short, her eyes surrounded by dark circles that not even her makeup could hide—and thanked her for their invitation.

“Leaving already?” she said, though she didn’t look upset. She looked too tired to be upset.

“Unfortunately, yes, we have much to attend to,” Francis said. “We’re very sorry to be leaving such a lovely party so early. Congratulations, again. We wish you many happy years.”

“And you,” Hedervary said, her smile faint. “A toast before you go? Since you’ll be missing the formal toasts.”

Francis slipped two wine glasses off of a passing waiter’s tray, passing one to Arthur and keeping the other in his fingers delicately. “To you and to the Emperor.”

“To our Great Lord,” Hedervary said, her voice unwavering, though it was still thin as paper. “Romulus Dominus.”

Arthur raised his glass as well, “To Romulus Dominus.”

Their glasses clanked and they drank.

Francis set the glass down on a passing waiter’s tray and left quickly with Arthur, all formalities taken care of. They walked quickly, Arthur apparently spurred on by however much nervous confusion Francis’ silence was causing him. He must have assumed they were returning to their apartment, as when they left the restaurant he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction of the space port, only for Francis to grab his arm and steer him the correct way.

“Where are we going?”

“Just follow me,” Francis said, no longer sure if he looked calm, now that the moment was truly upon them. He tried to keep his head up and his appearance dignified as they walked along the sidewalks—though the area of the air field was not as glamorous as the inner streets of the capital, the sidewalks were still miraculously clear of trash and the pavement and buildings around them were speckled in gold and white. The planet’s sun hovered at an angle and shown through the buildings, turning all the shadows long and deep, all the bright spots blinding and hot. Francis hoped that whatever planet they were brought to was also hot; he wasn’t sure how to keep Arthur warm enough if even Pompeii’s ever-present warmth could slip away from his mechanical body.

They arrived at the space port without trouble. It was a thin, round building, built with large blue and white walls surrounding a deep pit in the ground from which the ships were launched. There were several entrances, each of them identical glass sliding doors which fed into waiting rooms, which fed into hallways full of steel elevators to lead then down to the proper gate for the departing craft.

Francis pulled out the two pins out of his pocket, keeping one for himself and passing the other to Arthur. Arthur tensed as it was placed in his hand, probably wondering where Francis had gotten tickets off-world when he hadn’t left Arthur’s side all evening. He had to have an inkling of what was going on by now, but he did not run away, which Francis considered a good sign.

They swept through the waiting room and into the halls of elevators, finding the one they needed without much trouble. There wasn’t much of a crowd, though several people were milling about—most of them staff by the look of it, but also some civilians. Francis could no longer spot the cameras on the walls, though he was certain they were there. Arthur’s hand found his elbow and gripped him tightly. Francis did not pull away.

He took Arthur’s pin back and put his own in the same hand, sliding them into a small hole next to the elevator’s door, unlocking it. He hurried in with Arthur before realizing their chosen elevator was rickety and old, and taking them slowly towards the cargo ship bay.

“Francis,” Arthur said once they were alone in the elevator, glancing at the corners of the elevator for cameras. “Francis, _explain_.”

“ _Later,_ ” Francis hissed back. “Later, I promise.”

“Will there be time later?”

“Not if you don’t hush.”

Arthur gaped at him, fortunately just in time for the elevator door to open. In his moment of surprise, Francis gripped Arthur’s arm again and tugged him along the loading dock towards their transport.

It was a large, hexagonal ship, and very different from anything that would be seen cruising across the surface of beautiful Pompeii. It was a rusty red-and-brown, its plates and welding marks exposed. The windows were blackened and reinforced from within; its belly was swollen to make room for cargo. Francis heard Arthur’s gasp, but didn’t turn to look at him, instead pulling him towards the ship all the faster once he spotted Alfred near the bottom of the ship where they would board, waving his arms frantically to draw their attention, urging them to hurry up.

“That’s a—” Arthur said, though Francis wasn’t paying attention. “That’s a carrier from—”

“It’s for us, now get on,” Francis said as they reached the steps of the loading dock. The door was many meters off the ground and required a staircase-on-wheels to reach. Francis let go of Arthur’s hand in order to grab the railing and hurry up it as Alfred vanished inside, leaving the doorway open for them. Arthur scrambled up behind him without anymore questions. They entered the first chamber of the ship and the door slid shut behind them. It sunk into the wall, becoming level and releasing a hiss as all the cracks and holes were sealed against the inevitable vacuum.

Alfred was there in the hatch with them, again near a door and gesturing for them to follow. He spoke, though he spoke so quickly that Francis wasn’t really able to make out much more than, “takeoff” and “somewhere safer.”

“Francis,” Arthur said again.

Francis tugged him on, following closely behind Alfred as the engines of the craft began to rumble. It was a deep rumble, echoing down into his bones and making dashing through the craft a much more precarious task.

They crawled up a ladder and through a thin hallway lit with red lights—wires were visible and the whole mechanic around them was twisting and turning, brimming with energy. The hall was too loud to hear much in; they were still too close to the thrusters and the engine room.

They emerged out of the deafening, blinking hallway onto a suspended catwalk. Alfred lead them down the stairs, the noise finally quieted enough to be able to hear the metallic clang each footstep made. Arthur gripped tight on Francis’ elbow.

They descended the catwalk into the belly of the ship, where Francis assumed cargo was usually stored. It was empty now, the metal pallets laying bare and blocks of barriers strewn across the floor. The lights above their heads hung from a thick wire, and swung with the rocking of the ship as it began to ascend.

It was like walking in a speeding elevator. A particularly unstable speeding elevator. Francis’ throat drifted down into his stomach, which fell to his hips, and his knees seemed to be somewhere in his ankles. His heart pounded, still trapped very firmly in his chest, but grown so large it pressed against his lungs.

Alfred called, “Over here, get here,” through the chaos, though most of the turmoil was probably in Francis’ head. The spy had opened up a panel in the wall which moments ago had looked like a rather large vent. Now, it led directly into a large square chamber with Matthew inside, beaconing to them. Francis wrapped his arm around Arthur’s back and ducked down to slide in. The craft rocked with turbulence, and it was all they could do to sit down without jolting themselves painfully.

“Francis,” Arthur said, “Francis, _explain—_ ” he was staring at Matthew, wide eyed, and then staring at Alfred as Alfred slid into the chamber behind them, pulling the panel back into place.

The chamber went dark. The only apparent light source was the slits of the vent peering out into the cargo bay. The only other light source, if it could be considered one, was Arthur’s faintly glowing eyes. They stared frightenedly up at Francis in the dim.

“Did you not tell him yet?” Matthew hissed across the gloom. He had settled between his brother and Arthur, a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and his pale features illuminated in the beam of one of the vent slits.

“Arthur,” Francis said, “ _Relax_. I’ll tell you once this actually works.”

“Francis,” Arthur said. A wave of weightlessness hit them very suddenly. For an instant, they levitated a centimeter off the floor before clattering down again just as suddenly when the artificial gravity took hold. Outside their hiding place, the pallets and blockades also rumbled menacingly. “Francis.”

The turbulence of leaving the atmosphere had stopped completely, leaving the whole craft still, except for the quiet purr and rattle of parts in the walls.

The only other noise was the quiet rumble as a barrier, something unable to be identified from this angle, was moved in front of their vent. It pressed directly against the vent, cutting out all outside light and—with a terrifying hiss—sealing them in without airflow.

“ _Francis_ ,” Arthur hissed again, more desperate than any time before.

A dim light flickered on from the edges of the floor and with another quiet hiss, Francis felt a faint breeze on his cheek.

“We’ll be reaching the first checkpoint in half an hour.” The voice that answered Arthur was not Francis’, but a woman’s. She spoke in a soothing low tone from behind the barrier, out in the cargo bay. “Until then, please be as quiet as possible. You’ll hear people walking around doing the inspections. Until the barrier comes down, things aren’t safe. It’ll be a few hours before we reach our layover. Please stay calm.”

The quiet taping of footsteps on metal came and faded away.

“Francis,” Arthur said, his voice a whisper.

Francis put a hand on Arthur’s head and stroked his finger through his friend’s hair. Arthur’s mechanical whirring was inaudible among all the other quiet creaks and rumbles on the ship.

“We’ll talk once this has worked,” Francis mumbled. “I promise.”

He turned to the twins on Arthur’s other side, still stroking Arthur’s scalp, and said, “We have a first stop?”

“The ship’s alibi,” Alfred hissed.

“This is the first ship we could get,” said Matthew, his voice thin. “There’s lots of ships just like this one who pass through so it’s not strange for it to go to both Pompeii and our jumping-off point. And by the time they realize and try to catch us, we’ll be in interplanetary space, out of their reach. But this lets us hop through their warp points and makes the journey actually doable.”

Francis nodded, and still as loudly as he dared, said, “Where do we go interstellar from?”

“Britannic.” It was neither Alfred nor Matthew who had answered.

Their heads all swiveled down to look at Arthur, who had his legs curled up to his chest and his chin resting on his kneecaps, still leaning in to Francis’ hand. Arthur looked up at their startled faces, his faintly glowing eyes now some of the brightest things in the room. “This is a carrier to Britannic. This is the kind of ship we send salt and water in. One of my brothers helps load these.”

“Oh,” one of the twins said. Francis wasn’t sure which.

Matthew reached his hand out once more and gave Arthur’s shoulder a squeeze.

“It’ll be all right,” said Francis.

“I haven’t been home since I was nine,” said Arthur.

“Me neither,” said Francis. Then he added, because it would be best to dispel any hopes quickly, “Though I doubt we’ll have time to exactly go out and look around.”

“We won’t,” Alfred said. “It’ll be too risky. We only have a handful of inside men on Britannic. They’re risking a lot to get us in and out on short notice. They’ve given us this ship and everything.”

Arthur drew a shaky breath. Though Francis couldn’t hear him rattle, he knew somewhere, Arthur probably was. “What’s going to happen to my home when they realize they helped us do—go—whatever this is?”  


“We don’t know,” Matthew said.

They were silenced by ker-chunk of the ship sliding into the docking bay of the first checkpoint. Pompeii’s checkpoint. One of the many floating stations in space which all space travelers had passed through, but the lucky had only ever seen it through their ship’s windows.  It hadn’t taken their cargo ship long to pass from Italia’s orbit to the checkpoint. The checkpoints allowed interplanetary travel to take a matter of hours instead of years, and passed information from one planet to another at extraordinary speeds. They also had mandatory checks at each point, which slowed travel but stopped unaided stowaways in their tracks.

Francis didn’t know how many of those stowaways had a private hidden chamber with its own unique air supply and, he suspected, x-ray and radiation shielding. By the way Matthew and Alfred huddled up together, tensed but seemingly not frightened, Francis guessed this must have been the way they’d been smuggled into the Empire in the first place.

He wrapped an arm tightly around Arthur’s shoulders and lay his cheek on Arthur’s head as the first set of footsteps passed their door by. Their hiding place remained undisturbed.

They spoke rarely for the next few hours, only the faintest whispers between them. They passed around a bottle of water and tried, largely in vain, to not mind the passing of time, until finally their nervousness gave way to fatigue, and all four of them stretched out on the metal floor of the barren room and tried to get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Edit 7/26/14 : Why didn't someone tell me that 7 Pre and 7.1 were switched around? :( It should be fixed now, sorry for any confusion.**
> 
> 000
> 
> Take off take off take off take off take off aaaah spaceship takeoff must be so cool when you’re not fearing for your life!! (hello I was raised in airplanes and I very quietly enjoy whenever you get that weightless feeling like when the wheels first leave the tarmac. Except for one time when my dad killed the engine mid-flight and we started to plummet THAT WAS A BAD WEIGHTLESS FEELING)
> 
> 000
> 
> The rest of this chapter is already something like 30,000 words long, so I’m going to just say “fuck it” and post a chapter 7 prologue. The next three uploads should come near the start of August, and cover the rest of Arthur’s journey, important things that are happening on Pompeii, as well as include and option additional 10,000 words on a planet that we haven’t visited yet. It’s optional because the characters are OCs and the most important things happening to them are going to be talked about later on in the story enough that the chapter isn’t really necessary, but if you want additional reading material and happen to like OC incarnation of these particular countries, it may be fun.
> 
> Basically, what’s going to happen is I’ll post the next three parts all at once and y’all can figure out what order you want to read them in. Because there’s no real order, and everything will reference things happening in other things if I’m doing this right. So you can read one and be like “!!!” and then read the other one and what would have been a surprise before turns into dramatic tension! If I’m doing this right. I hope I can do this right. Like. Since this is AO3 you'll have the option to just go with the order they're posted in. But you can also just ignore that. 
> 
> 000 
> 
> So. 4,000 words down, three more chapters to write. Will Arthur get answers next time? Ha. What answers? Hahahahaha. Francis is a dickwad. Fuck nanowrimo I’ve gotten farther with this story than literally anything else I’ve ever done.
> 
> One of the ways illegal travelers are detected is searching for inordinate CO2 concentration in an enclosed area. By offering an alternate respiratory system than the one the people are checking, or by temporarily cutting off or lowering the CO2 emissions, people can slip by undetected. 
> 
> I’m going to project so much shit on this fic next chapter, it’s gonna be great omg 
> 
> 000 
> 
> So uh I’ve been absent from everything and that’s because my internet did successfully get destroyed completely and now I post from McDonald’s and by using the kindness of neighbors. We are working on getting internet back but it’s gonna be a long hard stupid road and I’m more likely to come back with internet once I get back to school for the semester. 
> 
> I am so glad to get this thing off of my computer


	8. Fireside - Arctic Monkeys (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur can’t do anything. There’s nothing Arthur can do.
> 
> (Warnings for this chapter segment: Mentions & discussion of death/suicide. Lots of cursing and arguing. )

Their descent to Britannic was smooth. Uneventful. They were let through the last checkpoint without the inspectors making a peep. Arthur was let out of the hidden room along with Francis and the two—spies. The women who had called to them hours earlier was there to greet them, informing them quite cheerfully that Britannic had a rebel-friendly loading dock, so it would be safe for them to stretch their legs and use the toilet from here-on out. While they were docked, though, they were required to stay in a certain section of the cargo bay where the loaders wouldn’t be walking and where the ground was slotted to remain clear of transport goods.

They could not exit the ship under any circumstances, since the rest of Britannic was not guaranteed to take as kindly to them as the dock. They would bypass returning to the warp checkpoint and instead use the Britannic as a launch point for the next leg of their journey through open space and into rebel territory.

"That will take months," Francis said, his forehead creasing. He stood beside Arthur, readjusting his clothes. They had crinkled from being sat on for so long. Alfred and Matthew were nearby, stretching their legs and leaning on each other instead of paying much attention to the conversation.

They knew about this beforehand, Arthur reasoned. He swallowed a heavy lump in his throat, and looked back to Francis, who had also known about  _this,_ whatever it was, beforehand.

"It will take  _weeks_ , not months,” the woman said, her voice gentle but giving no indication she would tolerate arguing. “The rebellion may not be as technologically advanced as the heart of the Empire, Mr. Bonnefoy, but that does not mean we are stagnant.”

A second voice chimed in to agree with her. A young man with slicked hair. He said, “It’s unwise to underestimate your enemy, no matter how seemingly small and helpless.”

Francis did not respond to that line of conversation. Instead, he asked their names.

The woman was Meena, and the man was Rishi. They owned this Britannic cargo ship, they explained. Had for years. Partners in business and banditry.

Now that he had a good look at them Arthur decided, in his opinion, Rishi and Meena were far too stunning to be running an intersystem transport. Someone else might have disagreed, but they looked like the sort of people who would rather be outside on a hot day taking long walks arm-in-arm, or inside during late nights, dancing and sampling all the bite-sized delicacies that Pompeii buffets had to offer.

Meena wore a bright red outfit that made her stand out among the otherwise dull colors of the ship, making her seem out of place on the craft, even as she climbed the catwalk stairs and slid her arm into the inner guts of the engine room to tinker whenever there was a particularly unfortunate sounding  _clunk._  Rishi, on the other hand, wore a dark but pressed suit and scampered through the ship with almost a skip in his step, darting around any crew members that happened to be in his way as he went from one end of the vessel to another, chatting the whole way, checking and double checking this and that and but-Reiner-said-no-no-no-do-the-other-thing-pull-the-other-lever.

They had dark skin and warm hands, and though they looked and dressed quite differently, they moved and gestured with such familiarity that Arthur wasn’t sure if he was looking at siblings, close friends, or lovers. They did not say, and no one but Arthur thought to ask. Arthur was not about to ask.

Meena offered them food and water, telling them to take their fill, for within fifteen minutes they would be docked on the ERS Britannic and their cargo belly filled up to the brim with all the supplies they would need.

With that, the four spread out to explore the cargo bay which would be their new home for the next few weeks. There were mattresses which could be brought out of storage to make things more comfortable, but the crew cabins were already filled up, and so the only places remaining for the four to sleep would be interspaced in the cargo bay and the hidden vented room. After hours cramped in there without the comfort of mattresses, though, all four of them were using the exploration as an excuse to stretch their legs.

The cargo bay was in the center of the ship: a large, round belly squashed between the hexagonal thrusters and the observation deck. The craft had a very distinct shape, designed both to indicate its status as a carrier from the outside, but also to hold as much as physically possible. It was unapologetically ugly, its metal panels mismatched in color and its bolts bare for anyone to see. Wires and pipes crisscrossed along the ceiling. A woven catwalk was the apparent transportation method of choice. The place was built for flexibility, Arthur supposed, for he could feel the sway in the ship even as he stood. For a short while he watched the hanging lights swing in slow, small circles as they dangled from the ceiling.

Arthur slipped away from the other three with a small food packet and a canteen of water. He found a corner of their allowed space in the cargo section and sat there alone with his back against the wall, his neck tilted back to watch the ship’s workers shuffle about on the catwalk above his head. He avoided eye contact with anyone, especially Francis and the two wh—spies on the other side of the bay. The belly of the ship rattled with spare parts and loose screws, and the sound of it comforted Arthur, what comfort he could accept.

He was still in his bright military dress. His epaulets were tangled and his medals were crooked on his coat. At some point he had lost his cap, which he rarely ever wore anyway. In his breast pocket, the napkin of food from that last party on Pompeii was pressed against his chest. He pulled it out and laid it in front of him at his feet, next to the small ration packet and canteen.

In comparison to the napkin of slightly squished Pompeii finger food next to it, the rations resembled dogfood more than anything else. The pieces were small and cubic in shape, about the size of a thumbnail; their colors seemed restricted to a very narrow palette of colors, all of which began with the adjectives ‘dusty’ or ‘faded.’ The majority of the morsels were some shade of tan, but others were vaguely pinkish or verging on a milky white. Some were the faded green of dangerous water. None were blue or black. One was dark yellow and hard, wrapped in paper, with microscopic instructions written the side, telling Arthur to dissolve it in heated water for a broth.

Arthur sat there motionless, looking at the two piles of food, trying to not let the ‘what if’s infiltrate his thoughts.

He was kidnapped.

That’s what it was. No two-ways about it.

He had been abducted. Taken without his awareness or consent. Once they landed, if Arthur let his foot rise again off Britannic soil, he would never go back to his apartment in Pompeii.

It felt like an extraordinarily silly thought after he thought it. Initially, it had struck him as a cold bolt of terror, straight into his metal stomach. He was being abducted. He was being  _abducted._  He’d never get to go back to his apartment again. He was—

Arthur swallowed deeply and took several deep breaths. He tried to clear his head and think. What did he care about that apartment?

He cared the world about that apartment. It was the closest he’d felt to happiness, laying there ignorant with Matthew in his arms and Francis in the other room. He’d wanted to die in that apartment.

He thought deeper.

He was leaving his mother behind on Pompeii. She wouldn’t know what happened to him. She would screech and throw a tantrum, demanding he be found: her precious baby child—not that the Empire would need encouragement to look for him, but his mother would scream for it anyway. As the Caer of a small, backwater world, she had fought for her influence and she had treasured each of her four sons dear as life itself, and she would be devastated with worry for a son she had already almost lost once. Perhaps?

Arthur hadn’t seen his mother in over a year, though he knew she lived on Pompeii not a few miles away in the heart of the capital. He hadn’t called, but she hadn’t either. When she worked, she threw herself into it with such ferocity that she could go on ignoring those she cared about for, for—

There was a story he was told when he was seven. The second oldest of his brothers had been seven once too when he and collapsed at the edge of Britannic’s Long Pier, plummeting into the oceans many meters below. He was dragged to the surface by—Arthur couldn’t remember who—but it was several days before their mother swooped into his room and scared the death right out of him. For weeks, Arthur and his brother Llewellyn had taken to diving off the pier to see if their mother noticed, while their two oldest siblings supervised.

Now, he was in his twenties and farther away from her than he had been in his life, mere kilometers above his home planet’s surface. She probably wouldn’t notice he was gone for a while unless he dragged himself to her attention, and he could think of no real way to do that aside from hijacking the communication network. By the time the message reached the consulate on Pompeii, they would be hours or days behind the carrier ship.

He would miss Pompeii’s food. He could already see that by looking at the rations before him. He would miss the food, and the soft beds, and the way a Jacuzzi bath felt around his ports. He would miss Matthew.

Matthew was on the other side of the cargo bay, sitting beside his brother, but Arthur had never felt more distant from the man ever since that first night in the hospital after trying to die.

Arthur took a slow breath and wrapped his food up in his napkin once more. He put a cap back on his ration packet. His movements felt sluggish and disconnected. He had been due for a checkup from Ludwig, soon—perhaps he should inform Francis about the apparent lag time between Arthur’s desire to move and his actual movement.

But he didn’t want to.

Francis had been the one to drag him onto this ship in the first place. The one to arrange this whole fiasco. Now, they would all probably die once the Empire caught up—all of them would die except Arthur, at least, because if they were willing to bring him back to life after a suicide, they would surely do it after a kidnapping—and it would be Arthur’s fault just as much as Francis’.

No, Arthur decided. No, he did not want Francis poking about in his chest cavity for repairs right now. If he wanted anything, if he wanted to stay and plead anyone’s case, he would have to escape onto Britannic’s surface and contact the Empire through them.

He would have to think of how to phrase things to prevent everyone from being executed as traitors—that would mean saying Francis, Matthew, and Alfred were also kidnapped by the rebels alongside him, rather than plotting alongside the rebels. That would mean sending the Britannic rebels and the entire carrier ship to the dogs, unless he managed to convince someone that the ship was blackmailed into it, which meant Meena and Rishi—

The sound of rain against the metal shell of the ship was faint, but Arthur was still able to identify the long-faded sound of his childhood. It stilled his thoughts, allowing something to rise up from his gut and fill his mind.

He did not want to be responsible for anymore deaths.

The cargo ship landed on the Britannic docks with a rumble. Arthur did not move a muscle from his seat. He breathed slowly and deeply, closing his eyes and trying to focus himself inwards, forcing himself to be calm. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Focusing on his breathing kept him grounded as he heard the hatch doors opening up and smelled the faint old smell of ozone that perforated the entire planet.

He hadn’t realized Britannic smelled of anything before he had left. Ozone, and metal, and salt.

The first of many feet walked past him, shuffling quickly by without a break in step. Arthur kept his eyes very much shut. The next few sets of feet hurried by, the tankards and barrels of water being rolled along with them never even coming close to his spot. He ignored them just as they ignored him. This was his last chance to run if he wanted it. If he was going to do it, the time would be now.

A hand fell on Arthur’s shoulder. He jumped and jerked away his eyes snapping open wide as he twisted around to stare up at whoever had approached him without his notice.

Francis looked just as startled as Arthur felt, pulling his hand back and stiffening his shoulders. “Are you all right?” he said.

Arthur had lost his breathing pattern. He took a moment to try and establish it again. “I’m fine. Thanks. You just startled me.”

Francis frowned. After a moment, he bent his knees and sat down beside Arthur, leaning back against the patchwork walls of the ship. “You don’t look fine. You’ve hardly said a word since we got here, and now you’re sitting all on your own. What is it?”

"I’m just tired," Arthur said. "I didn’t sleep well on the floor."

Francis nodded. “No one did.”

"And I’ve been kidnapped," Arthur added, almost unthinkingly, but ‘unthinkingly’ might have been a lie. "I’m not really happy about that."

He was expecting Francis to protest the choice of words, but the most that happened was Francis’ jaw tightening and his lips pressing together.

"You’re safer here, now," he said. "Everyone is."

"You’re all going to die when the Empire comes for me," Arthur said, unwilling to look at Francis and trying very hard to not let his voice quaver as he spoke. "If not in the crossfire then from execution and torture, later. You know they do it."

"I know," Francis said. "But in the meantime, there will be no more Angel Assaults, and that’s the best thing we can ask for right now."

"What if the ‘meantime’ only lasts for a short time?" Arthur said. "We don’t know how long this will work."

"We’ll figure that out if the time comes."

“ _When_ ,” Arthur said. “They will come.”

Francis hummed and ran a hand through Arthur’s hair. “Don’t think about it much. Now let’s watch them load the cargo. Have you ever seen this?”

"A long time ago," Arthur said, but he stood up alongside Francis and was shuffled back over to where Alfred and Matthew were standing, leaning against the wall, watching Meena and Rishi help direct the crates and tankards being stacked and rolled onto the ship. Men and women swarmed the previously bare cargo bay, moving barriers around and filling up empty space with everything they could. They wore gray overalls covered in stains. Their collars were patterned and they had the logo of the docks stitched onto their left breasts, declaring their work area to everyone who knew the logo.

Arthur remembered, faintly, smatterings of things he’d learned of his home before he was moved to the Academy. He remembered the armbands, the folds of the uniform collar, the cool mist outside his residence block on calm mornings. The small integrated school classes teaching them about engineered desalination. The day his two oldest brothers were told they weren’t going to school any longer, armbands in hand. Arthur remembered the long face of the man who stalked right through the chaos of the loading dock, hailing Meena and Rishi to speak.

Arthur’s second oldest brother had grown in the last decade.

Aiden was his name.

He was lanky and gaunt, his complexion marred by more freckles than there was water in the ocean. His hair was long and red, simultaneously damp and greasy from the constant mist and rain. His eyes were bright green, and almost as though he could sense Arthur’s attention, Aiden’s bright green eyes flickered over and found him.

Arthur did not flinch, though he felt somewhat like this was a situation where he should have. Instead, he stood very still, staring back at his brother with neither the willpower nor ability to look away.

Aiden continued to talk to Rishi and Meena, but his gaze stayed level on Arthur.

"Arthur?" Francis said, shaking Arthur’s shoulder. Francis tilted his head up to look at who it was Arthur was so intently focused on. His eyes narrowed as he tried to remember Aiden—Francis had last seen any of Arthur’s brothers at their graduation three years prior, but it seemed as though he still remembered Aiden well enough to place his face. "Is that?"

"Aiden," Arthur said, his voice as steady as he could keep it. "Second brother. In charge of cargo transport both on and off Britannic."

"I guess he’s… a rebel? Or at least aware of them," Francis said, something odd and a little bit like awe in his voice. "When we were at school, do you think…?"

"I don’t know," Arthur said.

"Do you want to talk to him?" Francis said.

"I don’t know."

Arthur’s brother looked away first, turning back to Rishi and pointing up at the top of one of the now numerous stacks of crates towering precariously up to the ceiling. He moved away from the pair to half-jog to the stack he had pointed to, taking up one of the straps on the floor which Arthur hadn’t noticed prior, gripping the sides of one of the crates, and beginning to climb.

Arthur was busy still watching his brother strap the tower into place securely when Meena arrived. He hadn’t seen her move.

"Things are going to take a little longer than we’d hoped," she said, a note of anxiety in her tone. "The machine that usually helps secure the boxes isn’t working like it should. We don’t have much time to fix it so they’re going to secure things manually until then."

"How long do we have until the Empire knows we’re here?" Alfred said from his place by the wall.

"By now, they probably already know you’re all running," Meena said. Arthur’s stomach dropped. He felt Francis tense beside him. "You should have returned from your party hours ago, so they will be searching, and the footage from the spaceport will have told them what ship to track. They’re probably getting information through the warp points by now, but we can’t say how far behind us they are until Britannic receives a message."

"Wait," Arthur said, a sudden thought striking him. He turned to face Meena with wide eyes. "That means this ship can never be used again."

Meena graced him with a thin smile. “We knew this would happen. This is a far lower price than we thought we would have to pay to receive the Angel.”

Arthur snatched Francis’ wrist and gripped it tightly, his heart beating furiously in his chest and his arms all gone cold. “Excuse me?”

Meena looked up at Francis, who shook his head and wrapped his other arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “He is  _Arthur_ , not just one of their experiments.”

Arthur glanced again at the catwalk that lead to the place they’d entered from. He wondered if the door was still open, if he could still make a break for it. Meena held her hands up in front of her and said, in what must have been her most placating voice, “Of course, you’re right.”

"What I’d like to know," Francis continued, "is why you would sacrifice a ship and make this more dangerous when you’ve obviously got other ways of smuggling people on and off of Italia."

"You’re the only ones we’ve ever tried to smuggle off of Italia, much less out of Pompeii," Meena said. "This was the best option we were presented with."

"So the rebels on Pompeii are just abandoned there?"

Meena’s smile finally broke into a shallow frown. Her brow furrowed Arthur wanted to curl up in a corner at the sight. “Alfred, Matthew, and Mona are the only rebel contacts on the entire planet of Italia. They risked their lives to infiltrate it with the understanding that they might never be able to be extracted. Mona is still risking her life to stay for the chance of acting as even the smallest foothold.”

Matthew, of all people, was the one to cut Meena off.

"We weren’t smuggled onto Pompeii," Matthew said, stepping away from the wall and getting between Meena and Francis, his arms out in front of him. "We were brought to a contact on Louie and made an identity there before applying to the prostitution program. More poor, manufacturing, and outer ring planets have rebel presence. Like Louie and like Britannic, and Moldovera."

Arthur cleared his throat of the lump that had lodged itself behind his Adams apple. Francis said, “Moldovera was a planetwide city,” though he knew very well that Moldovera was one of the rare inner planets that had declared open war with the Empire, but Arthur could almost see his mind moving to another planet, another possibility, his little sister Marianne.

"A poor city," Matthew said. "A huge, poor city that used to supply them with scrap metal."

Gassed.

"What’s going to happen to Britannic?" Arthur said, watching the floor by his feet.

"If we leave before the message arrives, nothing," Meena said. "But if we leave after it does, Britannic will be blamed for letting us go, most likely."

"They’ll use napalm," Arthur whispered.

Francis elbowed him. “That won’t happen. No one would dare destroy Britannic.”

"Not if they could build a new one," Arthur said. "Or repopulate it."

"Hey," Matthew said. "Stop that. Both of you. It’s not going to do anyone any good."

Arthur thought about the doorway the catwalk would take him to. He could still smell the ozone of his home. He could still run, still break from Francis’ arm and make a dash for the doorway, run to the nearest Empire loyal and plead his case, plead it in front of a whole judge-jury-and-executioner courtroom. They would punish Britannic even if he returned, if they discovered the rebel population, and they punished rebels by—

He looked for his brother on the top of the towers of crates. His brother wasn’t there. He was nowhere Arthur looked for him.

"Did you really think we were walking out of Pompeii without any risks?" Alfred said, his eyebrow arching.

Francis said, “Of course we knew there were risks,  _salaud_ , but this is  _Britannic_. It is a dreadful, rainy little hunk of metal that no one is supposed to be able to sink, not even the Empire. If anything were to happen to Britannic, what do you think would happen? It wouldn’t just affect Arthur and I—they supply the salt and water to more than three fourths of the galaxy!”

Francis, shoot me.

"We know that! Do you think we don’t? Who the fuck d’you think gives that shit to the rebel planets? Meena’s downplaying the risks we’ve taken for you right now. We’re risking  _far_ more than just a fucking cargo ship!”

Francis, shoot me.

“ _Your_  risk? Your  _risk_?

If they catch us, shoot me.

"Both of you will stop it right now or I will bash both your heads in!"

Don’t let Angel destroy my home.

000

Arthur wandered dazedly up to the observation deck and peered out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of his home.

He saw rain, and the gray interior of a hanger he didn’t recognize, and two men on a ladder refueling the ship, their legs dangling off the panel they sat on while they laughed mutely on the other side of the glass.

Arthur returned below deck, unable to recognize anything but the rain.

000

The message came.

It was very simple.

"Cargo Ship BNC 105 to be forcibly detained for treason against the Emperor."

It came a little less than an hour after they had landed on Britannic, their cargo just barely all packed in and halfway harnessed down. The message blared out over the loudspeaker in the hanger.

All the workers paused simultaneously to listen. Like a hive of bees suddenly frozen in a snapshot. Franics and Alfred had stopped shouting and were sitting with Matthew and Arthur between them, and uneasy silence having spread over them for the last ten minutes, broken only by the sounds of the loading that had now stopped.

For one long, awful minute, all the gray uniformed workers stared at each other, wide-eyed and only faintly breathing.

Finally, a voice broke out, “Everybody out! Move it, fuckasses! If they take off quick enough, we can at least say we tried to hold them but failed!”

They moved at once, a wave of bodies rushing along the floor of the cargo bay and sliding off the top of the crate towers. There was very little noise except for the thunderous footsteps, all the men and women in the bay moving without speaking to listen for further instructions. They swarmed to exits Arthur hadn’t known the cargo ship had, vanishing one by one until only the crew of their craft was left, scrambling to their stations for takeoff. The ship was rumbling before Arthur had gotten to his feet, straining to see if he could catch one last glimpse of his brother. Could it have been Aiden who shouted out the decision to run?

"Get in the hidden room!" Rishi shouted from across the hall. "We’ll let you out in a minute, but if the cargo falls, you’ll be safest there!"

Alfred and Matthew were up first, opening the way for Arthur and Francis as one of the crate towers began to sway threateningly.

They settled in the hidden room, bracing for the rocking of the ship’s ascension and the rumbles of falling salt and water tanks.

It could have been that they still had another hour or two to out run their pursuers—but it could have been that the military cruisers were coming just minutes behind them, ready to shoot them into the ocean. Arthur was betting on the latter option, knowing the military reaction times better than anyone else for all the hours he spent staring down at the reports they’d given him of the Angel Assaults. He didn’t say a word about that suspicion, though. It wouldn’t have helped anyone, not now.

He pressed himself up against the back wall of their hidden room, his shoulders bumping into Francis on one side of him and rubbing against Matthew on his other side. He could feel the moment they broke atmosphere, with all the pressure that had been slowly pressing his lungs into his gut disappeared, and they floated free for just a moment before the artificial gravity kicked in hard. With his ears popping and pressed against the wall, he could hear the rumble of the thrusters deciding their speed and angle as though he were right next to them in the engine room, a participant in his own kidnapping.

He fled Britannic, knowing he had surrendered any say in whatever would happen to it next.

000

Some of the crates of salt fell at some point before Arthur was allowed out of the hidden room again. They were strewn across the floor, having been stopped by collisions with other stack and the water tanks. One box had broken open entirely, its corner split and bent until the precious white grains scattered across the floor. Alfred knelt down next to a pile of it, licked his finger, and ate some. He shuddered, but a moment later was calling Matthew over to join him.

Was that it?

He had sat in the hidden room for—it must have been hours. He had tired to count the time and failed miserably, but if it had been anything less than hours Arthur wasn’t sure how he was going to survive the rest of his abduction.

He supposed he was now complicit in his abduction, though. So perhaps he could no longer call it that. He wasn’t sure what other word would fit, though.

The worker who released them from the room was gone, already on his way back to whatever station post he held, and so if Arthur wanted to ask him the time, it was too late.

What good would it do to know the time, anyway? Just make him wonder if the military had destroyed Britannic yet. Just make him look back later with the knowledge that at 1050 the first bomb had dropped, and he would wonder if it had been 1050 when he was curled in the backroom behind him, watching the walls vibrate.

"Was that it?" Arthur said aloud, starting around at the stacks of salt and water and the workers shuffling by trying to clean up the spills, and Francis wandering away and the lights swinging above his head without a care in the universe, and, " _Was that it?_ ”

"Was there something else you expected?"

Arthur jumped and spun around. Rishi had approached him from the side when Arthur was staring up at the ceiling. He stood quietly in his suit, his hands in his pockets and a lean in his back.

"Sorry if I startled you," Rishi said. "Are you okay?"

"I’m fine," Arthur said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. He raised his hand and flicked it, hoping that would somehow convey just how okay he was. "Perfectly fine. Just. A little frazzled I suppose."

"That sounds like a bit more than just a little frazzled," Rishi said, coming over close and giving Arthur a pat on the back. Arthur flinched. The pat had been nowhere near his ports, but still. "Sure you’re all right to be wandering around."

"Yes, I’m fine," Arthur said. "Really. I don’t think sitting will do me any good right now. I just," he took a deep breath, "I guess I was just expecting something more… I don’t know."

"It felt dull?" Rishi said with a grin. "You can stand, sure, but you have to move away from the vent now. We’re going to bring out mattresses. It was too dull for a daring escape?"

"Kidnapping," Arthur corrected him, "But yes. I suppose."

"I’m not sure what you were expecting," Rishi said.

"Well, my home planet’s probably on fire right now," Arthur said, his face twisting into a scowl and his voice coming out more snappish than he really wanted it to. "I feel like my life should actually  _feel_ like it’s steeped in turmoil, instead of just cognitively knowing that as a fact.”

Rishi just nodded, gently taking his arm and leading him away from the hidden room. “Yeah, I understand. But look at it this way. If it were more interesting—or full of turmoil, I guess, if you want to use that word—if it were more interesting, then it wouldn’t be a very successful job we’d done, would it?”

Arthur shook his head, wanting to argue but not sure why or where to begin. Then, from from one of the many elevated doorways out of the cargo bay, Meena’s voice rang out, “Come up!”

She was grinning widely and beckoning them in a far different way than they had been beckoned onto the ship originally. “Come up to the deck; have any of you ever been close enough to see a star?”

They moved out of the cargo bay almost embarrassingly quickly. Arthur wasn’t entirely sure how much any of them actually  _cared_ about seeing a star, but it was sort of like being told to come look at a rainbow, or view a particularly lovely sunset. One didn’t just  _refuse_. But perhaps they were just as fidgety as he was. Perhaps they wanted a distraction from this dreadful flight as well. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with a great deal on his mind.

They shuffled up onto the observation deck of the ship. They were below the actual controls which dictated their course, but near enough to see some of the control panel’s flickering lights.

The room they stood in was wide and bare, wrapping from the staircase—one stair down to the cargo bay, the other leading up into the control deck—all around the nose of the ship and then back around again to another separate staircase into the bay. The walls were covered in a sheet of white paint to make it more pleasant to sit and relax in. Several chairs, benches, and vending machines were set up against that wall, but they were by and large ignored. The other wall was made up of large, heavily reinforced tinted windows which all the members of their small party were soon cluttered around to look out at the great glowing orb suspended in the dark.

The violent rays were dimmed by the ship’s windows, but the milky yellow ball of gas and fire still dominated the entire window. If Arthur pressed his cheek against the glass and stared as far back as he could, he was able to make out the pale blue dot of Britannic in the distance.

He heard Alfred’s voice say something and then, ‘celestial bodies.’ He turned just in time to watch Alfred sway his hips and arms suggestively while Matthew laughed. He debated approaching them, unsure of if his presence would be an intrusion, but he stood uncomfortably between two groups: Matthew and Alfred chuckling to his left, Francis, Meena, and Rishi to his right, talking softly with gesturing hands and serious looks, all thoughts of stars abandoned. He glanced back and forth between the two factions, feeling the empty spaces at his sides much more than he previously had when he had first taken up his viewing spot.

His instinct was to go to Francis. He wasn’t sure when exactly he had evolved that instinct, but he felt it then, in his chest. He fought it without showing much more than a small scowl on his face, deciding that whatever that conversation was the trio were having, he didn’t feel up to being a part of it right now.

Instead, he turned again to the two brothers on his left and slowly began to approach them.

"Sorry," he said once they noticed them. "Do you mind if I join you?"

If Alfred was going to refuse him, Matthew didn’t give him the chance, saying, “Yeah, sure. Al’s just making really bad dirty jokes right now,” before his brother had even had the chance to fully open his mouth.

"Wow," Arthur said, because he could think of no other response. He smiled as best he could, and hoped it didn’t come out thin or forced.

Perhaps he should have moved towards Francis’ group anyway, he thought. Perhaps he should have never approached either group. Perhaps he should have just gone back down to the belly of the ship and pretended none of the stars were passing by, separated by only a thin metal hull.

He tried to make his sigh of relief unnoticeable when Alfred and Matthew picked up their conversation again almost immediately.

He didn’t pay it much attention. Alfred had moved on to, ‘starlight, starbright, babe come home with me tonight,’ and ‘I’m attracted to you like a planet to its sun—with a large force inversely proportional to the distance squared,’ (after that one, Matthew hit him. It seemed like a soft hit, compared to the ones Arthur recalled; his brother had been so close to him mere hours ago, close enough to touch) and Arthur, without being directly invested or involved in the chatting, spaced out until Matthew said his name.

"Hey, Arthur, have you—sorry, stupid question."

Arthur startled out of his reprieve. He blinked rapidly and looked up again. “Sorry, what?”

Matthew shook his head quickly while behind him, his brother rolled his eyes. “I, uh, just blanked a lot, sorry. I was going to ask if you’d been off-world before this, but then I realized,  _duh_. Sorry.”

"It’s fine," Arthur said. He smiled very faintly, and the ever-present knot in his chest loosened just a bit. "Yeah, I’ve flown—twice, I guess."

"Just twice?" said Alfred, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Matthew elbowed his brother sharply. “Don’t mind him, he’s basically lived in space for most of his childhood.”

"Ah, really?" Arthur said, turning to look at Alfred instead, who gently rubbed his abused ribcage. "That must have been interesting."

"I guess you could say that," Alfred said, shrugging. "I mean, I wasn’t too fond of it myself at the time. I learned how to hack computers and shit, though. When you’re alone with nothing to do, you learn a lot of random shit. "

"Were you born on a ship?"

Alfred shook his head. “Nah, I used to have a little moon I lived on. Cow fields. Flowers. It was great.”

Arthur got a low shiver in his spine and decided he didn’t want to know what had caused Alfred’s move into space. Instead he turned back to Matthew. “Do you fly much?”

Matthew shook is head. “Just once before we had to go to Pompeii, and I didn’t see very much on either of those trips. We kept very busy last time. I did fly a lot when I was a newborn, but I don’t count those, since I can’t exactly remember things from that young.”

"Not the worst trips possible, then," Arthur said, a small smile managing onto his face once more.

"Yeah, though up—oh. Nevermind."

"Hm?"

"It’s nothing, I just—I did fly one other time but it was short and I didn’t really—" Matthew coughed. "Um. I did evacuate  _once_ , but it doesn’t count. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

The discomfort emerged again like a tide rising up and tugging at Arthur’s ankles. “Oh,” he said. He took a breath, realizing that with this many run-ins in such a simple conversation, there was really not going to be a way to avoid talking about it. He might as well broach it, if he was going to be hung either way. “Um. How. How long ago? Did you evacuate. I mean.”

Alfred and Matthew shared a glance, all cheerfulness and joking swept from their faces. Matthew said. “Three years, ish? A little more, probably. Somewhere between there.”

The chill rose to Arthur’s stomach and infiltrated his lungs. It was a different chill than the one from his usual low body temperature. This chill was clenching and painful, and no amount of heated blankets would be able to chase it from his bones if he didn’t confirm this right now. He told himself that as he tried to think of what to say next, how to continue this topic, but his mouth had gone dry.

Leaving a childhood home was tragic, certainly, and not something Arthur would want to bring up in case it was upsetting, but—but three years meant that there was a chance that it was—

"Early Angel Assault?" He croaked the words out before he was ready. He saw Matthew suck in a breath through his teeth. Alfred reached up and put a hand on his back, and Matthew leaned into it so subtly Arthur almost didn’t notice.

"Yeah," Matthew said. "Yeah. Two in a row. Two little moons off of Prien. We were on the second, Joten."

"I’m so sorry," Arthur said. Would it be wrong of him to reach out and hold Matthew’s hand? The urge came suddenly to him, too quickly for him to know what to do, but while he struggled with that the next words came easier and without much thought. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Alfred’s steadying hand turned into a tight arm around Matthew’s shoulders, pulling him back and switching their places. Arthur stumbled back a few steps. Alfred followed him, encroaching menacingly despite Matthew’s very soft voice telling someone to stop.

"No, we can’t, not as well as  _you_ could,” Alfred said, hissing through his teeth in what might have been an attempt to keep the others in the room from noticing what was going on. “You planned it. It was the reason we started hunting you in the first place. You know  _exactly_ what happened and if you think it’s funny to try and hold this over us, then I should—”

"— _Al,_ " Matthew grabbed Alfred’s arm and tugged him away from Arthur. "Chill! He’s not fucking interrogating us!"

"He was being a—"

"I don’t know."

Both brothers stilled and turned to face Arthur as he spoke, his voice thin. He cringed down at their looks. Alfred was still glaring at him through his glasses.

"I don’t," said Arthur. "I really don’t, I swear, they—I don’t remember what happens during a session. The doctors said they’d mindwipe me but Francis says the information’s never there in the first place, but I don’t—" he wet his lips, "—apparently there’s a lot I don’t know."

Neither brother responded.

"Francis knows far more about the Assaults than I do," Arthur said finally.

Alfred pursed his lips and glanced at Matthew once more before letting his brother go and storming silently across the room to where their smugglers and Francis stood, still chatting obliviously.

Arthur reached out and took Matthew’s hand.

"Please," he said quietly, once Alfred was very much out of earshot. "Please, Matthew, I really don’t know."

"I know," said Matthew. "Or, I didn’t  _know_. But I believe you.”

They both fell quiet for a short while. Just long enough for the voices behind Arthur to rise.

"Let’s head back below deck," Matthew suggested. They did. Alfred came with them initially, but paused midway down the stairs.

"I’m going to stay up here and watch the star," he said after a moment. "Holler if you need me."

"Okay," Matthew said. "I will."

Arthur didn’t reply. It wasn’t directed towards him, anyway.

They descended back onto the floor of the cargo bay, the stacks of crates and tankards piling up around them. The salt spills had long been cleaned up. There was no one about except for the occasional wandering shiphand on the catwalks above their heads.

They returned to the hidden room to find that their beds had arrived, though their bunks were more of mattresses on the floor with some semblance of order and some blankets and pillows on top. Arthur claimed one which they both sat on, trying to not mind the creak it make. There were several layers of comforter piled up on top of the mattress he chose, hopefully enough to keep him warm. Arthur was tempted to kick off his shoes, slide beneath his blankets, and lay in a cocoon of them until he felt slightly less awful.

"Arthur?" said Matthew beside him. "Your eyes are turning red."

"I’m sorry," Arthur said, even though he knew this wasn’t one of the things he had to apologize for. "I’m just thinking about a lot of things right now."

"Like what?"

There was a long silence while Arthur tried to decide whether or not he should speak. He’d done enough damage up in the observatory deck. It would probably be better to just stay quiet. But that wouldn’t endear him to Matthew, either—it wouldn’t endear him to anyone, probably.

Matthew sat beside him patiently, hand on Arthur’s back, eyes watching the other side of the room, waiting without staring. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, but I’ll listen.”

Arthur thought for a few moments longer. Where to begin if he spoke? What was it that was even eating him so badly right now? Why didn’t he just curl under his blankets like he’d wanted.

"Do you ever wonder about; I mean," Arthur said finally, his voice a whisper. It was scratchy and strained. Matthew’s lips were against his ear quickly, asking him in that gentle voice to repeat. Arthur spoke louder. "Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to die."

"Oh," Matthew said. An uncomfortable silence settled on him as he searched for words. His hand rubbed circles between Arthur’s shoulder blades, between Arthur’s ports. "What d’you think it’s like?"

"I just said I don’t know; I don’t remember being dead." Arthur said. "I hope it’s like falling asleep. I hope it’s like nothing at all."

"I don’t want it to be nothing," Matthew said. "I want it to be sort of like living. But I guess, happier. Less suffering."

"That’s life," Arthur said. "What you want, I mean. Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. It  _has_  to be different, right? It has to be some sort of comforting thing. I’m sure Francis would say something sort of like that. It makes sense when he says it, but he always backtracks and fucks it up. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.”

Arthur sighed. Matthew did too. He continued to rub Arthur’s back. “Why do you wonder?”

Arthur swallowed and thought back to the scrawled pages of his diary in the hidden drawer in his desk. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” he said.

"I know," Matthew said.

"Sometimes I think," Arthur said. Then he paused to examine how to phrase the thought in his head. Had he been talking to Francis, there would have been some sort of comment about ‘sometimes you think? Preposterous,’ and Arthur would roll his eyes, and Francis would lead the conversation off track so far that by the time Arthur remembered what he wanted to say, it would be too late and hard to bring the subject back up again. He almost expected it to happen; years spent alongside Francis had gotten Arthur used to dealing with people as though  _everyone_ was a different form of Francis. Matthew didn’t speak though. Matthew waited, and continued to rub Arthur’s back, giving him time to think through his words until he was happy with how they would sound. “Sometimes I think that if I can die, it might make it up to those who I’ve killed, and to their families.”

"You’re just one life," Matthew said in his gentle voice. "Your death won’t make anything up, it’s one life against hundreds—" millions, Arthur corrected him, "—the best thing you could do would be keep living and try to make it up that way."

"Lives have different intrinsic values," Arthur said. Matthew made a confused sound. "Have you heard of the trolley dilemma? There’s two rail lines, five people stand on one end of one line, one person stands on the other. The trolley’s breaks are off, so one of the groups at the end of the lines will die no matter what. Do nothing and five people die, but there’s a switch beside you. If you pull the switch, the trolley can change lines, and the one person will die instead. That dilemma. Do you know it?"

"No," Matthew said, "But I understand what you’re saying. Kill the one person and the blood is on your hands directly because you chose to, but by doing nothing and killing more people, you technically aren’t at fault so you don’t have to deal with guilt?"

"Exactly," Arthur said. "And if someone else is telling you what to do with the lever, you’re absolved of guilt no matter what. That’s why we need strategists to decide, and generals to issue orders, and a leader above us all to forgive us for deciding. Making soldiers decide on their own is—was—supposed to be avoided whenever possible."

Matthew smiled and spoke again, thinking Arthur was finished speaking and accidentally cutting off an attempted segue. “Good system. I probably wouldn’t be able to pull the lever on my own. I don’t know.”

"Francis would pull the level. He did all the time in practice battles. Pulled all sorts of levers." Arthur said, smiling faintly in response. "I hope that I would. I don’t know. I’ve had a lot longer to think about it than you have, too. But that’s not where I was going with this."

Matthew lifted his head a bit higher. “Oh?”

Somewhere in the background, Arthur could hear the ship workers walking around and carrying things. The salt blocks slid ever so slightly in their restraints and the water sloshed about in its containers. The ship hummed.

"Imagine that what’s at the end of the line was different. If you do let the trolley continue down its chosen path, you get five… ‘good things,’ I suppose. Good deeds. Things that living people can do to better the world around them. Everyone benefits." Arthur watched as Matthew’s face changed from his faint, sympathetic smile to a worried frown. "Or you can pull the lever and on that end is the death of a murderer. Let’s say… Romulus Dominus. What would you do?"

Matthew bit his lip. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. Arthur could guess what his answer would be by the way the hand on his back tightened.

"Imagine how many of my victims would love for someone to pull that lever and turn a trolley towards me."

"That may be true," Matthew said. "But it’s still not right."

"True, but ‘not right,’" Arthur said, trying to contain his eye roll. "I am not the person to lecture about morality. Especially not now. And probably not by you, if I had a guess."

Matthew snorted and laughed. It was a bit of a pathetic laugh, but Arthur would take it. It brought the smile back to Matthew’s face, at least.

"Can’t you live for your victims instead of dying?" Matthew said. "Survive for the lives they didn’t have? You’ll die one day anyway. No matter what, we all die. If at the end of your life your survivors still feel like they want to pull the lever, then they’ll still get that satisfaction, but in the meantime, can’t you also do the good deeds you said were on the straight path?"

Arthur’s response was immediate.

"That’s cruel."

"Hm?"

"To both of us," Arthur said, leaning on Matthew’s shoulder. "It’s cruel. To ask someone to live for a dead person. That’s the worst thing you could ask me to do at this point, aside from going back into one of those fucking computers. That’s  _hard_.”

Matthew wrapped his arm around Arthur’s shoulder, taking his weight and letting his hand run through Arthur’s hair.

"How could I do that?" Arthur said. "Who could do that? Who can go through life with that kind of thing on their mind? Every time they’re about to eat a sandwich they’ll be thinking, ‘I hope this was a productive use of my life that a million dead people are entrusting me to enjoy to the fullest because they’re dead and can’t enjoy it anymore—fuck,  _this isn’t good enough_ , I vaguely don’t like it. Shit. Wasted my life more than ever. Sandwich isn’t good enough. I fucked it up.”

Matthew laughed. Arthur began to cry.

Neither of them spoke much after that, but Matthew held him for a very long time, quietly stroking his hair.

Three weeks later, their ship touched down on a small habitable strip on the planet Prien, where Arthur and Francis stepped onto the coarse, burnt ground to meet with the rebellion for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swore I wouldn’t be That Fic Author who uses overused philosophical hypothetical morality situations in their fic but GOD. DAMNIT. It fit really well at 12:24 at night!
> 
> All y’all people who read Ocean at The End of the Lane can guess which part really fucked me up. Neil Gaiman hit it all right on the head. If anyone was in doubt before, I can vouch. The “this sandwich isn’t the best I’ve ever experienced, I’m wASTING LIFE” feeling is a real feeling and it is both bullshit to deal with because logically, not every sandwich is going to be the best ever sandwich ever, but it’s such a hard feeling to get rid of.
> 
> This was even longer before I decided the first 10 pages should be put up as the ‘prologue’ portion.
> 
> Is… is ‘holler’ a word people still use outside of my ten mile radius?
> 
> One reviewer mentioned not being sure what the songs in the chapter titles meant. They’re mainly just songs that I felt fit the chapter and Angel story overall, whose titles also fit within the theme of “fire.” If you wanna listen to them while reading, go for it, but they’re also just a general sound cue type thing.
> 
> Two of Alfred’s pickup lines are from jokes4us dot com under ‘pickup lines’.
> 
> My recommendation for a cosmic pickup line? “Are you a planet? Because baby, you’ve got some kind of a celestial body.”
> 
> 000
> 
> Slight change of plans. Part 2 of this isn’t totally finished yet, so I’ll be uploading that in the next coming days once it’s done. Part 2 is the “optional” chapter that you can skip if you want and you won’t miss anything important. Part 3 will come soon after, once it’s out of the editing stage. I was just really excited and didn’t want to wait until August? and dyrimthespeaker agrees. No one wants to wait until August.
> 
> 000
> 
> ‘“They’ll use napalm,” Arthur whispered.’
> 
> You know what war device I hate and fear almost as much but not on the exact same level as an atom bomb? Napalm. Fuck napalm. Let me tell you about napalm.
> 
> Napalm is jelled petroleum lit on fire. Therefore, it a) sticks to your skin if it touches yoour (there is still no practical way to get it off) and b) it does not go out if you douse it in water. When initially deployed for firebombs in WWII, it was discovered that you could avoid napalm by going underwater, since petroleum is less dense than water and would float on the surface. That was viewed as a flaw, and so white phosphorus was added, and now napalm can burn you underwater, too. Adding water only creates smoke or an explosion due to heat differences. Water boils at 100C or 212F. Napalm burns at 800-1200C or 1500-2200F. That twice as hot as the surface temp of Venus. Venus. The Hell Planet.
> 
> People who hide in shelters and have managed to avoid the actual burning death from napalm can still be killed by heat stroke, radiant heat, dehydration, suffocation, smoke exposure (especially when around a lot of water) or carbon monoxide poisoning. In addition to being used by the US in WWII during the firebombing of Germany and France, it was used in the firebombing of Japan which resulted in 330,000 deaths, by the UN during the Korean War, and most famously, napalm was used extensively in the Vietnam War alongside the biological hazard Agent Orange, which have left mental, emotional, biological, and ecological scars which last to this day, very similarly to the way goddamn radiation hangs around messing with everything it encounters.
> 
> Fuck napalm.


	9. DEVOUR (optional chapter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brittanic made its own illnesses. Brittanic made sadness deadly and lethargy as thick as chains. Brittanic made specters in the mist and screams build up in empty rooms. Brittanic hypnotized and sucked men dry in her clutches. The story of Arthur’s home planet, without him.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Mental Instability, sort-of ableism, mild violence, violence between family members, neglect, underage labor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name Key:  
> Republic of Ireland = Aiden (non anglicized is Aodhán)  
> Scotland = Barclay  
> Wales = Llewellyn “Wally” Wallace (I can give you the story behind this one but it’s long, convoluted, and not really relevant.)
> 
> This chapter is optional. So just remember, if you get a bit into it and realize you’re bored out of your skull, you can x out and you won’t miss anything in the main plot of Angel.

Months ago:

000

Arthur had been gone for years. The only time in over a decade that Llewellyn Wallace had seen him was at the private graduation ceremony.  
  
Arthur hadn’t looked too hot after being crushed by a train but, well, what could you do? At least he wasn’t as ugly as he had been pre-puberty when he had first gone to school. The prowess of modern cosmetic surgery was astonishing.

  
Llewellyn did not like to consider himself a bitter sort of person, though he made no secret of keeping a tally of his successes over his brothers, especially their precious littlest one.Arthur had been chosen to go to the academy by their mother after she immediately passed up the twins because of their Issues, and then passing over Wallace because, well…  
  
The official excuse was that Arthur had more drive to travel to distant planets and explore their setups.  That Arthur was the most book smart and the most studious. He was capable of far more than repairing the desalination mechanisms. He would go further than anyone else.  
  
But fuck all if their mother didn’t play favorites and left Barky trying to run their fuckhole of a planet when he was fifteen, and never sent Aiden to a  _real_ doctor, and Llewellyn had  _deserved_  to go to the Academy more than Arthur ever had. It wasn’t as though they couldn’t have sent two sons. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have the leverage to sway stuff a little if there was a complaint or complication. It wasn’t as though Llewellyn thought of himself as a bitter sort of person, but damn if he hadn’t lived a single day of his life since he was ten wondering what his life would be like if Arthur had never taken the place of favorite.  
  
000

Llewellyn was going to escape. He vowed it. He lived for it.

000

Aiden climbed. He climbed like a monkey, despite having never seen a tree in his life.

“Yo, fuck this shit,” he’d said, taking one last drag of his cigarette before snuffing it out under his boot. He replaced the cigarette with a pair of pliers between his teeth and some black electrical tape wrapped around his thin wrist. He cracked his knuckles and then his neck before swinging himself up on a pole on the outside of the beacon tower and beginning his ascent.

The beacon’s tower was, like other things on Brittanic, gray and made of metal. It rose up, made of criss-crossed metal beams, pipes, and chains. It supported a cage-like elevator and the eponymous beacon at the top, which rotated slowly, illuminating the country for passing spaceships. Wires wove up the sides like—well, wires. Nothing twisted and turned quite like a wire on Brittanic. Not snakes and not rivers. Those were as mythic as mountains.

Near the top of the beacon’s tower, just a bit too low for a worker by the beacon to reach (and that beacon room at the top of the tower was deserted, anyway), was a cluster of wires that had gotten loose and pulled out of their bindings somehow, rendering the beacon unusable. The man sent to fix the sparking lines had been gone for half an hour now, and with a shipment and drop-off due in just a few minutes, the beacon still wasn’t lit. There was a very real possibility of drowning or crashing without the beacon, and so most ships would opt to stay in space instead. They hadn’t yet had a theft from a ship delivering goods  _to_ Brittanic, but that was likely because the rebels spent so much time and effort stealing salt and water rations off of carriers instead.

“Isn’t he gonna die?” Wally said, watching Aiden scale the tower.

“Probably,” said Barclay beside him, frowning down at the clipboard in his thick arms, trying to look anywhere but up. “He didn’t bring a pair of rubber gloves, did he?”

“Nope,” said Wally.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’ll probably fry up there if he doesn’t fall first.”

“Maybe it’ll fix his brain.”

Barclay hit him. No one paid very much attention, and Wally pulled himself up off the ground without any complaint.

“There’s nothing wrong with his brain,” Barclay said. “Now shut the fuck up and get a doctor on standby.”

“He’s climbing a tower to try and fix a spark because he’s an impatient bastard. That’s something wrong in the head.”

  
“Yeah, and he’s single minded too, so he’s not coming down until he fixes it, now get me a fucking doctor so I can go grill the  _real_ mechanic who’s making Aiden do fucking stupid shit so the shipments can land on time.”

Wally went to find a doctor.

They went through doctors quickly on Brittanic. Rather, maybe the doctors got tired of them quickly. At least, to Wally’s knowledge, doctors didn’t  _usually_ stay only a year on a planet before abandoning it to a successor. People born on Brittanic became fishermen and salt workers and engineers. There were no facilities to train doctors.

Their doctors all came tanned and complaining about the weather. Their doctors all left pale and bitter about something or other.

Their closest doctor for this section of the ship—one of three doctors stationed on Brittanic, as mandated by the Emperor that there must be at least three doctors within a certain number of square miles which Brittanic would never exceed—was a pale haired, thick-ribbed, Academy-graduate who’d specifically requested to be assigned to (what he had referred to as) ‘less fortunate,’ planets.

His name was Ivan Braginki. He was the first Academy graduate living on Brittanic since the Kirkland’s own Caer.

He had the most fucking irritating smile Wally had ever seen in his life.

He beamed when Wally came in the door after winding through the damp streets and rushing down below the country’s deck to the doctor’s office. The walls were white and sterile. Braginski had decorated his office with oil paintings of flowers and a large basket of assorted colorful candies next too a poorly hidden cabinet of potent alcohol. Artificial plants and a stack of off-worlder magazines guarded the door, garnering wary looks whenever someone in the waiting room caught sight of them.

There were no workers in the waiting room now, though. Braginski sat alone behind his desk—painted to look like wood, but actually made out of plastic; surprisingly there was very little metal in it—a colorful vase of fake blossoming flowers set in front of him, his computer on his lap, and his paperwok scattered about the office in what Wally assumed was some form of organized mess.

Braginski looked up when the bell above the door rang and smiled with all his teeth, like he was a fucking happy person. It was almost a relief to wipe that grin off his face when Wally said, “Hey, uh, we need you to come out here for when Aiden inevitably falls to his death.”

Braginski was up and assembling the necessities for his little white bag of medicine before Wally could even blink. Bandages, syringe, more small metal bars (there were so many metal bars on Brittanic, these were only remarkable because of their small size and sterility), and various pill bottles and a compactable stretcher, and various other instruments that Wally wasn’t familiar with (fucking Academy doctors) but which he assumed would be quite heavy once they were all together in the bag. Ivan Braginski was a big guy though, bigger than Barclay, even. Barclay was one of the biggest guys on Brittanic, bodystrength wise. Barclay was built like a refrigerator: short and bulky. Braginski, however, was bulky and  _tall_ , maybe even standing twice Wallace’s height. One heavy doctor’s bag was probably easy for him to carry.

“You got anything there for electrocution, man?” Wally asked, trying to not mind the hulking figure of the doctor now that he had starting really thinking about it.

“Someone’s electrocuted?” Braginski said, “What’s going on?”

“Some wires got loose on the tower and our mechanic got lost somewhere. There’s no ropes and Aiden got tired of waiting. We have a food shipment coming in soon that needs to land. So Aiden scaled the building,” Wally said. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the fiasco, even though there was nothing in that direction Braginski could see but the opened doorway and downward staircase to his office.

Braginski paused midway through packing a box of baking soda, stared at Wally and raised an eyebrow. “It’s still turned on?”

“What, do you think we have a convenient on-off switch at the base of the tower?” Wally said. “It’s at the top. Next to the fucking elevator. Which becomes useless once you turn the power off.  _We_ didn’t design this place, we were just born here.”

“I assume you would have designed it differently?” Braginski said, standing straight again. He clamped his large bag shut and headed towards Wally and the door. Wally got out of his way quickly.

“Hell yeah,” said Wally. “ _We_ wouldn’t have put a residential quarters here.”

They left the office, Wally managing to stay just a few steps ahead of Braginski, whose stride was just as long as his legs.

“No one would be able to live here, then,” Braginski said.

“Yeah,” said Wally. “That’d be the point.”

“It would be inefficient.”

Wally shrugged. “I guess.”

Braginski shook his head. “I can see why they did not put you in charge of designing it.”

“Because I wasn’t born yet?”

“Aside from that.”

Aiden was still on the tower when they arrived, legs twisted around a pole and determinedly shoving one wire after another back in place and taping them, leaning back to check on the beacon above him, and then leaning forward again to shove more wires in place.

  
“Is that how electric things are usually repaired?” Braginski said quietly as they walked up beside Barclay, who was still at the foot of the tower, clipboard in hand.

“It works well enough,” said Barclay, staring up at Aiden. “As long as you know which wires to put where. And we do. As long as you don’t get distracted. Which Aiden doesn’t look distracted right now. So we’re probably good.”

“He’s dangling off a tower more than thirty meters off the ground,” Braginski said, staring at Barclay rather than at their twisting brother. “What could possibly distract him at this point?”

Barclay turned and pointed down the nearest line of sight to the ocean.

000

A few times a month, Llewellyn skimmed a little bit of that money off the top of their income and put it in his own private off-world bank account, set up by proxy. It wasn’t much money. A few hundred credits here, some spare change there. He kissed Barclay on the cheek if he ever saw his brother’s eyes narrow at him after such an escapade, and Barclay was always too distracted grumbling or calming Aiden to really go after Llewellyn Wallace.

That, or perhaps his big brothers did actually give a damn about him. But Llewellyn wasn’t going to kill himself banking on that. It was more likely that Barclay was in fact distracted by Aiden’s Issues, or that they were just as bitter about Arthur’s escape from their planet as Wallace was.

The decision to send Arthur to the Academy sealed the fate of all three of his brothers. It shut down their futures like a hundred doors all slamming shut at the same time. The news had descended like a particularly cold rain, sweeping over the waves with a low rumble and leaving them shaking and uncomfortable.

It left them alone on the Brittanic. On the planet of Brittanic, on the country of Brittanic, which was also the ERS Brittanic. They were straight lines on a planet of rolling fog and arching water. They were indomitable walls under constant battery and repair. They were the needle statue at the edge of the Long Pier, ever pointing towards their sun.

They were not actually a cohesive unit, the three brothers, and the sun was the only thing truly constant. It hovered just on the edge of the horizon, lighting them in a perpetual faint twilight, warming their side of the planet to just slightly above freezing temperatures, and creating the eternal fog and drizzling rain. The needle statue on the pier facing it was as thick as a man’s arm and made of a black metal. It did not rust in the rain. From a certain distance back, the very tip of the needle seemed to pierce the hide of their pale yellow sun.

Barclay stood just beyond that needle. He hovered at the edge of the precipice each day between shifts, looking out onto the waves. It was one of Wally’s duties to break his gaze. If he couldn’t make it, Aiden would come, but in general they tried to avoid that. They were a little too worried that Aiden would join him in staring. He had succumbed once, when he was seven, and when they finally broke his gaze he was never quite the same.

“Hey,” Wally called from the other side of the standing needle. “Hey, Barky! Can you get over here?”

His biggest brother jolted and turned, blinking. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.” He came. The fog receded. He stumbled over the edge of the statue and stood beside Wally. “What’s up?”

“You’re a fucking mess and owe me a kiss.” Wally said.

Barclay sighed and closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “What. Wally, what, no. What do you really want?”

“Nothing,” Wally said, taking his arm. “But you’re gonna miss your dinner completely if you don’t hurry up.”

  
He pulled Barclay along—and Barclay did not resist, stumbling down below deck until they reached the great gray mess hall, received their large bowl of stew for the evening, and sat on their great gray metal tables and benches to eat. The speakers played jaunty music, the sort that was already a few years old in other parts of the galaxy. A noisy heater warmed the room, sucking out the damp and spray from outside.

“Thank me,” Wally said.

“Thanks,” said Barclay, a little more color in his cheeks.

Above the mess hall ceiling, a ship ascended, heading beyond the clouds and fog. 

000

Ivan Braginski was one of three doctors stationed on Brittanic. The other two doctors were ladies. Cute ones.

Off-worlders tended to be cute in a way that people who’d lived on Brittanic since birth failed to be. Wallace was particularly exceptional as a person from Brittanic, as he had the looks of someone who’d never set foot on the place. He was as pale and spotted as any other here, but he had roundness in his cheeks and curls in his hair, and he could hide the work scars easily enough to fool anyone who didn’t know what to look for.

Braginski looked  _enough_  like a Brittanic citizen. He smiled too much, certainly, and his fingers were too thick, but he had the thin cheeks and pale skin down pat. Suong, another doctor, was pale too, but with almond shaped eyes and a kind mouth. She and the third doctor, a youthful dark-skinned girl who was all curves and glowed with health, had taken to walking around the whole of the Stacks each morning, talking with each other. They took boats out into the waves and they swam together—alone together. Learning to swim was discouraged. Long deaths, slow deaths. The Kirklands could swim, but the years of taking a boat out or shoving each other into the water had ended when Arthur was nine.

The two doctors came from worlds filled with hot suns and flowers. They would transfer at the end of the year, inevitably. Possibly together, holding hands or kissing. But they would transfer and be off-worlders together, in their off-world, where things worked differently and matched their sensibilities.

Braginksi, oddly enough, stayed through his first year into a second. His country was colder than Brittanic, he claimed. His city was bleaker and the people less wealthy, and he had been the family protégé who had gone to the Academy through skill and determination, and a single year on a dingy old ship-country-planet wasn’t about to scare him off.

He put it in writing.

Actually, he had written it in pen. All over the transfer form that Barclay had habitually brought to the office at the time for the mid-year paper filing, when the doctors and other off-worlders typically started requesting transfer forms. Instead of filling out the form as expected, or even just ignoring it, he had scrawled messy words all over it and turned it back in.

Barclay had fallen over laughing for the first time in months when it came back to his desk.

“He drew a fucking smiley face on it,” Barclay said, shoving the paper under Wally’s nose to see. Wally batted the paper away from his face, squinting, only for Aiden to snatch it away. It was a day where all of their hours off aligned briefly, and for some reason they chose to spend it together in their residence block’s den.

“Holy shit,” Aiden said. “He gave it  _teeth._  Who gives smiley faces teeth?”

Wally snatched the paper that time, just in case Aiden was messing with him, and—

Yep. Yep, that smiley face had teeth drawn in it.

“Was he like, offended or something?” Wally asked, staring down at the paper.

“What?” said Barclay. “At the transfer form? I thought I was doing him a favor. Thought he’d forgotten to request it or something.”

“Maybe he was insulted,” said Wally, handing the paper back to Barclay, who promptly lost it to Aiden again. On the roof above their heads, the rain was pitter-pattering down. Barclay was still grinning though. Just faintly grinning. “Took it as a dare?”

“Maybe,” said Aiden, finally handing the paper back to Barclay. “He seems like a pretty pissy kid, you know?”

“ _Prissy_. The word you meant to use is prissy,” said Wally, snorting.

“Don’t say that to his face. He might take offense,” said Barclay.

“Especially from you, midget,” Aiden said, falling back to sit on the couch by the wall. “You’re the prissiest of them all.”

Wally picked up a paperweight and chucked it at Aiden’s head. Barclay snorted and did nothing, waiting for Aiden to pick himself up from the floor.

“Less paperwork,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. Above their heads came the faint sound of a ship passing over. “No transfer letters. No hiring a third doctor. No training necessary…”

“You might as well take a vacation for a few days,” said Wally, watching Aiden fail to pick himself up off the floor.

The idea of a vacation made them all laugh just as hard as the smiley face had.

000

After years of skimming and no interest payments, Llewellyn’s off-world bank account had totaled up to 3,405 credits.

More than enough for a ticket out of this place.

000

A week into the second term, they dragged Barclay to Braginski in a bed sheet. There hadn’t been a stretcher available.

It was the middle of the night and the sun still hung low in the sky. The beacon tower rotated slowly, lighting up their path astonishingly clearly every few seconds, but they were more used to the half-light. They suspected they could navigate Britannic’s streets in total darkness. They had never experienced total darkness, but they imagined it couldn’t be much different than turning out the light in their windowless rooms during rest hours.

And they were infringing on the doctor’s rest hours now. Braginski slept from 22:00 to 06:00 except in the case of emergencies.

If this wasn’t already an emergency, Wally would make it one. He would fucking riot.

Aiden broke the hinge on the door and kicked it in. He stomped into the front office and shouted for Braginski to hurry his punkass into the front, or so help him, Aiden would find his sleeping quarters and drag him out himself.

Braginski stumbled out shirtless to the front of the lobby without any help from Aiden. His purple eyes were squinty with sleep and his footsteps were uncertain. Wally slid Barclay down the steps through the front door, careful to not jostle his head too much. It was enough to make Braginski startle and wake up a bit more.

“What happened?” he said.

“Barky’s not waking up,” said Aiden. “He was supposed to be on shift an hour ago.”

“I got him off the pier about six hours ago and he was really out of it, but I didn’t know it’d be like this,” said Wally. “I thought he could sleep it off.”

Braginski knelt down to Barclay and tugged off their brother’s shirt. He put his hand against Barclay’s neck and watched his chest rise and fall, and said, “his eyes are open.”

“Ish,” said Wally. “They blink every now and then. He’s not in there right now. They’ll close totally soon. He’s been like this a while, we think.”

Braginski sat on the floor with a think, looking down at Barclay. He opened Barclay’s mouth and looked in. He shone light in his eyes. He looked in Barclay’s ears. He took a sample of Barclay’s blood. “Was he taking any substances that you know of? Drugs, unclean or unfamiliar foods?”

Wally raised an eyebrow. “What? No. He was out at the pier.”

“I understand that, but what did he do before bed, if you have any ideas.”

“He was at. The pier,” said Wally. “Watching the ocean.”

“That should be irrelevant,” said Braginski, waving his hand.

“Dude,” said Aiden. “It’s the ocean. It’s never  _not_ relevant.”

“Look, fuck this,” said Wally, running his hands through his hair. “You’re a doctor here. You should know about this shit. I helped get him here, but I’m done now. I apparently get double-duty tonight because Barky can’t handle himself, so I’ll be out doing his job until eight. Let me know if he wakes up, but I’m out.”

Wally fled the doctor’s office, leaving Braginski leaning over Barclay’s prone body and Aiden to try and explain the concept of a sea sickness.

“No, no, you need  _shit_ to survive out here and Barclay lost his somewhere—no you can’t ask what my shit is, that’s rude as hell, shut the fuck up,” he heard Aiden’s voice say all the way up out of the staircase.

Llewellyn made a beeline for their digital treasury and scooped out a hundred credits to be written off as medical expenses and transferred them to his bank account before going back to work.

000

Ivan Braginski was baffled, and the second Kirkland brother was not being as helpful as he seemed to think he was being. They had transferred Barclay to a private bedroom in the back, with no windows, a small bedside table, and a blue sunlamp.

Ivan hooked Barclay up to a heartbeat monitor and an IV drip. His temperature was average and his breathing was steady. He seemed to be in a deep sleep, once his eyes closed completely.

Aiden was setting up much less practical things. A small speaker system. A heater. A small air freshener that produced a scent like strawberries and shortbread.

“Is that really going to help?” Ivan said, his skepticism clear in his voice. He rearranged the blankets on the bed to tuck his patient in a bit more tightly. “It’s much more likely that there’s been some sort of trauma that occurred, or a previously undiagnosed illness.”

“How long have you been here? A bit over a year?” Aiden said, frowning. “Have you really never seen this before? It’s the ocean. This isn’t the only place with one, I’m pretty sure. Like. Maybe they’re not as  _big_ , but you must’ve had to deal with this shit.”

“No,” Ivan said. “This is abnormal.  I mean, there are a variety of conditions which can result in an unresponsive state or apparent coma. There doesn’t seem to be a physical cause like head trauma, so it must have been mental or emotional. Now. If you want to actually be helpful, you can tell me if your brother has a history of emotional distress or if anything’s happened in the last few days or weeks that might have put him in distress, or if you have a family history of similar incidents.”

Aiden snorted and turned the space heater on. “What, you can’t check our files?”

“They are still extremely disorganized from the last few doctors and I don’t feel like the headache when you’re right here in front of me,” said Ivan, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. He leaned forward and rubbed his temples, taking a deep breath and trying to pretend he didn’t feel the lag in his body from running on two hours of sleep. “So can you tell me?”

“Yeah, this happens sometimes,” said Aiden. “Not to us, specifically, but just around the ship, y’know? It’s like an existential mindfuck. Barky’s showed signs of falling into it before but he didn’t fully do it. Wally’s never come close to it. I had a bad run when I was seven. Ma flipped her shit. Haven’t had it since; I’ve been too pissed to have it.”

Ivan pulled a blank clipboard out of the drawer of the bedside table. He had various clipboards and post-it notes hidden around the office, as he organized himself more efficiently with physical notes rather than with electronic ones. It was unfortunate, given the pricetag. Still, he pulled out his pencil and scratched down what Aiden was saying in shorthand.

“Mh. And what’s caused it? Do you know?”

“The ocean.”

Ivan almost threw his pencil to the floor.

“It is!” Aiden said, throwing his hands up. “You are such a bullshit doctor. Holy shit. It’s the ocean. We  _know_. They look out at the horizon too long and sometimes they drop on the spot, and sometimes they make it to their bunks first. They have to be taken care of until they wake up.”

Ivan took a deep breath and tried to curb his rising temper. His temper had been something that had to be broken at the Academy. It had taken them years to grind it down. To lengthen his fuse. He was going to be a beneficial member of society, he was told. A doctor, not a brute. “Historically, how and when have they woken up?”

“It depends,” said Aiden. “Usually, families take care of each other and send in a request for a stipend in place of their usual payments. IV drips and fluids in place of one person’s weekly food supply. If it lasts longer than a month, there’s no new clothes in the size of the person on the drip until they report back to wherever they’re supposed to spend their work hours. One person stays by their side at all times to monitor and try to wake them up. Wally and I don’t have that luxury with Barky, so we brought him here instead. If we were anyone else, we’d pull half our hours and hang around with him until he woke up. Try to coax him out of it, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Ivan said, writing. “You mean like speaking to a person in a coma?”

Aiden shrugged. He went about plugging in the air freshener. “I guess?”

Ivan again did his best not to sigh. He glanced up at the monitors surrounding the still brother on the bed while Aiden turned on the music player.

“Look, bastard, I don’t fucking know the science behind it. But talking to them, drowning out the waves, and making it warmer usually help bring them back to themselves. If we can get rid of the salt smell or make it smell good in general, that helps too. Barky fucking loves strawberries and cake, so your office is gonna smell like strawberries and cake for a while. Suck it up.”

“I’m not objecting to your methods, given they seem relatively harmless—”

“—but you don’t believe me, either,” Aiden said. His shoulders hunched and he rose from his knees until he was crouching on the tips of his toes like a creature. His large eyebrows straightened out into a deep line. “ _Look_ , Braginski. Maybe one day I’ll drag you down to the fucking pier and have you stare out into the ocean until you can’t fucking remember anything except how fucking  _tiny_ and  _pathetic_ and  _helpless_ you are here. And then I’ll shove you off the pier to remind you that, unlike _you_ ,  _I_ never even get the choice of leaving this place. And that pisses me off like you have  _no idea_. I walk around all day ready to rip people’s throats out, and I swear, if the other doctors weren’t greener than a bloated corpse, I would rip  _your_ throat out right now for all the bullshit you just put us through trying to get you to understand what’s happening in your office right now.”

Aiden was standing, his knees bent and fists clenched at his sides. Ivan remained seated, looking up at the older man, wondering what was about to happen, wondering if his temper would be needed, if he was about to be assaulted, but Aiden just continued to speak. “Barclay just mindfucked himself into a coma because he’s so fucking done that he can’t even get pissed anymore. So you shut the fuck up and treat him, and I won’t—”

Just as it seemed like Aiden might actually lunge, a clip on his belt sounded an alert. He snarled, as much as a human could snarl, and snatched it up, looking at the message on its tiny screen. He turned to glare again at Ivan.

“I’ll be back when my shift ends.”

Then, he left. He slammed the door as he went.

Ivan sighed and looked down once more at his clipboard and pencil. He took another glance as the still, silent brother on the mattress. He wrote on his clipboard, ‘causes of condition unknown’ and went back to bed, leaving the music, heater, and air freshener activated.

000

“What are you doing?” Wally asked as he walked into their den.

He shared the residence block with his older brothers. The same residence they were born in. The same residence they were raised in. The same residence they were ditched in. Their rooms were on the level below, with the small grey den on the entrance floor. Like many buildings on Brittanic, their residence was built below the surface of the ship, accessible by ladder, elevator, or downward staircase. The carpet was wall-to-wall and white. Their mother had accented the place with various red and green accessories, but little else changed up the color scheme.

Aiden was crouched on the floor squinting at his computer, bent over a low metal coffee table instead of sitting at a desk or on the couch like a sensible person. He jumped nearly a foot into the air.

“Fuck you, make noise when you come in!” he shouted, spinning around to face Wally. “What are  _you_ doing? Your shift ended half an hour ago!”

Wally snorted and dropped his wet coat by the door. He stripped off his wet shirt. He kicked off his wet boots. He slid off his wet pants as he said, “I was coming home. Slowly. In the drizzle which has now kicked into a full blown storm. You should be grateful I showed up at all. Now what’re you doing over there, being all secret-y.”

“…I’m writing to Ma,” Aiden said, sitting back again on the floor. Wally paused in the middle of kicking his pants off his foot.

“Why?” he said.

“Because of Barky,” said Aiden, typing two-fingered on the computer. “She should know.”

“She’s not going to do anything, though,” said Wally, gathering up his clothes and tossing them in a heap in the corner before going to the small kitchen-like inlet in the north side of the den. They kept their water heater there. He started up some water to make tea. Tea to warm up his frozen bones as he checked his bank account religiously for the next seven hours. “She’s just going to tell us to suck it up and deal with it.”

“She should still know.”

“She’s going to say that there’s too much shit going down in Pompeii or with Arthur to have time to swing by to see how we’re doing. That is what you want her to do, right? Swing by? She won’t. It’s pointless.”

“She should still know.”

“She doesn’t love us, Aiden,” said Wally. The water began to bubble. “If she did, she wouldn’t have left us here.”

Aiden tensed.

“She should still know.”

Wally resolved to dump the water on him once it boiled.

000

The two conscious brothers visited Barclay almost daily. Sometimes a little less, when one of them passed out into a deep sleep after trying to pick up the slack dropped by Barclay’s condition.  But they still visited almost daily, leaving Ivan with the great bulk of the caretaking work.

Not that Barclay was a difficult patient while unconscious. He might have been difficult had he been awake, but aside the occasional change of IV bag and air freshener and speaking his thoughts out loud (insisted upon by the other two brothers) there wasn’t much to taking care of Barclay except for humoring his conscious brothers.

Which Ivan had to do almost daily.

He was forced to start diverting attention from them whenever any other patients came up to ask about a treatment or concern. The two brothers crouched down the hall in the corner of the back room, only slightly visible.

Ivan learned, over time, that the brothers who ran this tiny ship of a continent were in fact largely isolated from the population, though their faces were well known. Llewellyn Wallace oversaw the water purification on paper, but his main job was visiting homes on different days of the week depending on the block, dropping off weekly supplies, taking complaints and filling out damage reports. Aiden spearheaded the workers in the desalination, ionization, and transport, working wherever there was slack to be picked up and shouting any complainers into complacency. Barclay worked finances and was head of engineering and repairs—which Ivan wondered about to a patient one day, as it seemed strange that Barclay would have let Aiden climb up the beacon tower if it were Barclay whose job was actually to be in charge of people fixing things.

He was told that, regardless of expertise, it was silly to expect anyone to be able to control any one of the brothers. They were independent, the patient told Ivan, puffing up as though he were bragging about his own children instead of his bosses.

It was disconcerting to everyone who came in to realize one of their leaders was indisposed, and worse to see one or both of the brothers crouched in that small back room, looking down at the floor.

Occasionally, Ivan went in to ask them to at least stand further inside the room so already distressed patients didn’t become even more stressed. Occasionally, he went in to make sure the illness which sent Barclay into a coma wasn’t contagious and the room wasn’t quiet because he had  _three_  collapsed leaders on his hands instead of just one.

Only once did he walk in on a phone call, though.

Ivan stood just outside the door, in view enough so that it didn’t  _quite_ qualify as eavesdropping, but, well, he hadn’t been addressed or invited to stand there. Technicalities. He was simply making sure that everything was under control in his office.

“I can’t visit,” the projection of Caer Brittany Kirkland said. “I have work, and right now I can’t leave for the amount of time it would take to have a single day of visiting, much less an extended one to watch over him. You’ll both do fine. You’ve been coping well enough so far that there’s been no real economic side affect. I trust you both to keep it up.”

Aiden was perched on Barclay’s bed—on the far side of the bed, between Barclay’s still body and the wall. He knees were curled up into his chest and his shoulders were hunched forward. He curled above Barclay like a perched bird. Wally mimicked his pose on the floor with his cheek pressed against his kneecaps not far from where Ivan hid.

“Told you,” Wally said.

“Shut it,” said Aiden, turning to glare at him.

Their mother scowled at them from the projection. “Both of you. Stop.”

They looked away from each other.

“I’m sorry I can’t come by. Barclay isn’t going to get better any faster whether I visit or not, but Arthur and our hold in the Senate  _will_ be affected,” she said, her eyebrows furrowed and mouth set in a serious line. “So you two will just have to wait it out. I’ll call to check in when I can, but it will likely not be very frequently. Send me anything you have to report.”

“What the fuck is Arthur doing that puts him in danger?” Wally said, waiting with careful deliberation until she had finished speaking.

“That’s confidential,” their mother said.

“That is so bullshit,” Wally said, scowling down between his legs and wrapping his hands around his feet instead of folding his hands into fists. “He’s in fucking Pompeii in the lap of luxury with fifty billion people waiting hand and knee. Fuck that.”

She turned to Wallace in one great motion that seemed to overwhelm the camera for a moment, as its image flickered and shifted. “Do  _not_  take that tone with me. You are not here, you are not involved, I intend to keep it that way. If I say that Arthur needs someone to watch over him,  _he does_. I have never coddled any of you. None of you can say the other is spoiled.”

Wally shifted and hid his face in his knees again.

“Do you understand, Wallace?”

He nodded without lifting his head.

“Verbally,” their mother said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled just loud enough to carry to the transmitter. For a moment, it seemed that Caer Kirkland was satisfied. Then, before she could speak again, Aiden did.

“But what’s going on?” he said. The projection shifted back to face him where he still crouched on the bed. “Seriously. We’d be less pissy if we actually had someone telling us what the big deal is.”

“It is confidential,” said Caer Kirkland.

“All of it?” said Aiden. “Seriously? There’s not, like, just a few sentences you can tell us about what’s happening? I mean, since Barks turned sixteen we’ve hardly seen you, but ever since Arty graduated, we’ve literally heard almost nothing.” There was a brief quiet in the room, with only the quiet hum of the transmitter and Barclay’s monitor’s steady beeping. “What gives?”

Their mother sighed. “It’s complicated, Aiden. Please, just trust me. It’s complicated. It’s confidential. Moving too much right now could get you in a lot of trouble. I’ll tell you everything once this is all done and over with.”

“When’ll that be?” Aiden said.

“I don’t know yet,” said their mother. “When the war ends, hopefully.”

They stopped speaking again.

“I should go. I have a meeting. Let me know how Barclay’s recovery goes,” Caer Kirkland said.

“We miss you,” Wally muttered.

“I miss you too,” their mother’s hologram said. “I’ll call back when I have time.”

The hologram dissolved.

Ivan moved to leave, his stomach suddenly churning uncomfortably.

“I told you she didn’t care about us,” said Wally.

“Shut up,” said Aiden.

Ivan moved further away. The voices rose, following him.

“I told you, though.”

“Yeah, shut up, she cares.”

Ivan moved more quickly through his front office.

“Aiden, you’re fucking delusional at this point if—”

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

“Ow! Ow, fuck, stop it!—Aiden!  _Aiden, stop_!”

Ivan left his office and closed the door behind him, climbing the stairs until he had reached the surface and could no longer hear the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. He leaned against one of the many tall gray buildings and stared up into the cloudy sky, and asked a working passerby to spare a cigarette.

000

Wallace stared at the computer screen projected in his lap, an icepack pressed to his forehead where the swelling was too painful. In his own bedroom, Aiden also had his own icepack, had his own computer, had his own secrets keeping him from falling into the same despair that ensnared their eldest brother.

4,652 credits stared back at Wallace from his bank account.

It was enough for two tickets, plus a little spare change.

He stared at it. He refreshed the page over and over, staring at it.

He never pulled up the page to purchase tickets. Instead, sick and sore and with a shift in three hours, he closed his computer and pulled the blankets over his head to sleep.

Above the ever-present sloshing of waves, he could faintly hear the rumbling engines of a ship taking off.

000

Aiden froze one day. Not that odd things from Aiden were unexpected—he had done far stranger than climbing electrified towers in the rain—but typically his strangeness was accompanied by action. Aiden was made for moving along with gale storms, not standing firm against them as Barclay was, or ducking out from under them, as Wally tended towards.

Aiden had been doing some sort of work on the computer in their den as Wallace sat curled in a corner reading the latest trashy novel on his reading list, a download he’d quietly bought with someone else’s budget. They were supposed to be knocking out the work Barclay would have ordinarily taken care of, but now that Barclay wasn’t there to tell them to stop snitching things from the top of the distribution pile or start finishing their work early, there wasn’t much stopping the from taking a break. But Aiden was finishing something up, whatever it was, and if it  _was_  work then Barclay would have been proud, but then he just

Froze.

The sudden cessation of the clatter of keystrokes was enough to send red flags up in Wally’s head. He tapped the screen of his tablet to set a bookmark in his story and got up. Aiden was in his usual spot, on the floor with the computer instead of sitting in a chair like a sensible person. Wally slipped around behind him, peering over his shoulder and found that instead of doing work, Aiden was reading an email. He skimmed the contents.

“Dude, what’s go you all messed up?” Wally said, tapping Aiden on the side of the head. Aiden jolted, having somehow not noticed Wally moving all the way across the room. He swiped at Wally, who ducked. “Not cool! Not cool at all, dude.”

“What were you doing?” Aiden said, closing his computer screen immediately, turning the device into a perfect mirror of the small, innocuous metal bars that were so prominent around their home.

“Uh, I was reading your email?” Wally said, straightening up. “Did you seriously not notice? And what was freaking you out about that?” he paused and realized he had one more question that needed answering. “And why are you even emailing a brothel in Pompeii?”

“It’s not a fucking brothel,” said Aiden. His face turned beat red. “Wait, why would you—”

Wallace grinned and slid onto the table where Aiden should have been properly seated. “They had a signature, genius. Why, are you looking at capital whores?”

“How long were you—”

“I am a fast reader, do not question me,” he held up a hand and studied his fingernails instead of the beautiful rainbow of colors Aiden was turning. “I am doing the questioning right now, and I demand to know—”

“—no you fucking don’t,” said Aiden. He wrapped his arms protective around his sliver of a computer and stood. He walked to the door leading deeper into the depths of their house, where the private sleeping quarters were.

Wally stumbled against the table in shock. “Aiden? Hey, I was teasing you, get back here!”

Aiden moved all the faster and disappeared into his chamber in the floor below. Wally stared down the staircase after him, at a loss. He couldn’t go into Aiden’s room. That sort of invasion of privacy on such a cluttered planet would unlock all sorts of unpleasantness. It would be another matter entirely if he believed Aiden was missing his shift or in some sort of crisis, but to follow him in just for teasing?

After short deliberation, Wally returned to his corner of the living room and picked up his reading tablet once more. His eyes traced the lines, but did not register the words. They were no longer what he wanted to read.

He wanted to read that chain of emails.

000

Llewellyn Wallace hacked Aiden’s account. Or, at least, he broke in without permission, even though it wasn’t quite the sort of hacking someone would write about in a thriller novel or put into a movie.

He would not have been able to identify where, exactly, he picked up Aiden’s extensive list of increasingly secure passwords—for if there was one thing that Aiden’s Issues lent him to, it was wanting for a sense of security—but Wally had a list of his passwords. Probably not a full list, perhaps not even half, depending on how many different accounts he had and how often Aiden felt the need to change passwords, but Wally had enough. It took over ten tries before a password allowed Wallace access to his elder brother’s email, but finally he did succeed and a page displaying a wild mass of correspondence was displayed on his small projected screen.

The conversations he found there were…

…underwhelming.

He clicked through, giving each message a few moments to be read and then immediately skipping to the next. Talking about dog breeds. Family—cousins that they didn’t have, who had never set foot on Brittanic, though Aiden apparently knew them quite well. Conversations about people that Wally didn’t know and events which he was pretty fucking sure had never happened where they were claimed. Something about someone needing to move in with a friend or else they would get evicted. Could people on Pompeii even get evicted? Where would they go? It wasn’t like on Brittanic where eviction was impossible, he supposed, but still, surely—

Llewllyn Wallace logged out and closed the laptop before he got a headache. He had to tell Aiden to stop staring at the horizon, or else his ‘What Is Real’ issues would bring back Llewellyn’s identity crisis.

Fuck that identity crisis. He knew which bits of himself were what, now, and he liked it that way.

Wallace turned his radio on, set it on the highest volume setting he had, and beat his head into a pillow until he forgot about the cousins that didn’t exist, and how much he wanted to beat Aiden’s ass, and finally made it to a point in his mind where he would respond to “Wally” and ignore any other names.

He opened the laptop again, briefly, to check his bank account (comforting) before settling into bed to sleep.

Some hours later, Aiden shook him awake.

Aiden shook him awake hard enough that Wally lashed out and slapped him away before he was even fully out of his dream. Aiden, long-faced and pale, glared down at him, mouthing words before Wally could quite manage comprehending them.

“…passes. Where are the forms for loading passes?”

“Hm?” said Wally. “Barky’s got them…” Then he remembered. “Or… or they’re in his desk, I dunno. Why?”

“We’re missing one,” said Aiden. “I gotta fill it out. Now.”

Wally grimaced and peeked up at Aiden through the hair on his face. “Why you gotta fill it out? Barks put it on the computer systems, didn’t he?”

“Computer bug fucked up the numbers we sent in. I was gonna put it in manually but I can’t fucking find them. So fuck you, wake up and help me.”

There was a note of shrill hysteria in his voice. That and little else made Wally roll out of bed onto the floor, hair mussed and clothes crinkled. He pulled on his boots with some difficulty and shuffled to his feet. “Yeah, okay, sure, we’ll find your form.”

Aiden didn’t thank him, but walked quickly out the door, face set in a scowl and pointedly ignoring Wally every time he raised his hand up to rub at his eyes. Wally tolerated it, knowing that it was just as likely that Aiden had imagined the missing form and was fighting through a couple layers of reality to reassure himself that it was all okay. They always had the right number of slips, every time, but when Aiden became stressed he tended to stockpile. The desalination and purification workers were used to Aiden intentionally creating a surplus for when cargo disappeared or was be stolen. It had proven useful in the past, when their supplies had been spirited away without a trace and they had to make an emergency delivery. Finding about the right amount for a shipment stored and packaged in Aiden’s hoard was a small ray of relief in their dim, frantic world. The need to have a managed surplus was probably an extension of Aiden’s Fuckin Issues, but at least this facet of Issues had saved deadlines and deliveries. He was beyond tolerated in that context.

Wally shuffled after through the half-light of their rooms. There were files and scraps scattered on the floor, on the couch, on the table, none of which had been there when Wally went to bed. There were cigarette butts and the contents of an overturned ashtray. Aiden’s computer lay opened but inert on the floor. Wally frowned.

“Aiden?” he heard a grunt from the hallway that led to Barclay’s room. “Aiden, how long have you been looking for the landing pass?”

“I dunno,” Aiden said. “A few hours? I fucking need it, Wally. The ship’s scheduled to come in a day. The computer’s too slow to process shit in time if I don’t get it in soon.”

“How soon is soon?” Wally asked, following his brother’s voice and finding him knelt in front of Barclay’s room, tugging on the door which was apparently stuck or locked. “Dude. Dude, don’t go in his room.”

“I’ve got a few hours or that ship isn’t allowed to land and some moon somewhere is gonna dehydrate to death,” said Aiden, finally throwing his hands up and stepping back. “Pick this fucking lock; you’re better at it than I am.”

“I don’t pick locks.”

“Like hell you don’t. You picked the lock to get in the night he collapsed; don’t even try to bullshit me.”

Wally hesitated. Then, Wallace stepped forward to pick the lock.

Barclay’s room was very sparse. Three rows of filing cabinets in one corner. A bed in the other. A barbell and some small weights. Neglectfully hidden porn collection. Travelogue. Poorly hidden stash of candy. The TV projection on the wall was switched on, somehow forgotten for all those long weeks since they had dragged their biggest brother out to the doctor’s on a makeshift bedsheet-cot. They had yet to replace his bedsheet, and the projector still showed the same slowly moving misty mountainscape it had so many weeks ago. Wally stepped forward to turn it off at the same time Aiden made a beeline for the filing cabinets.

“Why didn’t you try to look in here first?” Wally asked as Aiden dug through the many folders and datachip holders.

“I was hoping my job would be easy for once,” said Aiden, pausing to suddenly shout ‘aha!’ and violently tug up one of the many files. It was a small gray tablet, like all the other small gray tablets Wallace had ever seen. “And that Barky would hide his shit somewhere sensible, like, you know, in the living room we all put our shit in.”

“You don’t make your job any easier,” Wally said.

“How about you shut up,” said Aiden.

“No ‘thank you’?” said Wally.

“Nope,” Aiden said, turning with the file in his hand and making his way back out of Barclay’s room with Wally in tow. He closed the door behind them, hearing the lock click right back into place, sealing Barclay’s room once more. “You bitched your way through all of this.”

Without looking up at him, Wally said, “One day I’m going to run out on you and you’ll miss me and wish you’d been nicer,”

Aiden laughed and ruffled his hair, and told him to get the fuck back to bed.

000

A carrier ship came off schedule.

Wally wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been struggling through the damp from his residence block. His rest hours had been pushed around by Barclay’s sleep so much he was no longer totally sure what times he was supposed to sleep, work, or eat, but his alarm had gone off and he was exhausted, so he stumbled out to bed without a complaint, when he realized that at some point, he’d heard a ship over his head.

He wasn’t sure  _what_  hour it was, but he was certain there wasn’t supposed to be a ship being serviced in the docks at  _this_  hour. Things in the Empire weren’t really supposed to  _go_ off schedule. Ships weren’t supposed to shuffle through the Britannic clouds around the docking stations hours outside of the few that Wally knew for a facthad occurred earlier in the day.

There was of course the occasional stray late ship. There was occasionally an exception, but Wally hadn’t heard of it, and he should certainlyhave heard of it. With all the fiasco of the previous night trying to find Aiden’s landing form, Wally had paid special attention to the carrier ships. He’d counted them and found the full slotted amount had arrived and left on time with their full payload. Not one missing, not one ship sent spiraling down in flames into the sea. Not that they had ever really shot down a ship. They usually just turned unwanted or unauthorized ships away at the warp checkpoint—but the proper number of sanctioned ships came and went.

Now, there was this spare.

His curiosity piqued, Wally made his way towards his work to tell the workers gathered with the boxes of clothes and food supplies that he would be taking a detour and they should start without him. Then, after a short stop at the mess hall, Wally made his way towards the docks.

The docking station was built like a stadium: a deep bowl of a building with walls jutting out of the surface of Britannic and its ceiling perpetually open, regardless of wind, rain, or mist. There wasn’t much point in trying to stop things from getting wet on a planet like theirs. As long as the salt blocks were kept covered and the water was sealed up, there wasn’t any risk of melting or contamination, and everything electronic was waterproof by necessity. Keeping their homemade engineering working on the docks was much simpler than trying to deliver off-world goods in the residential district or installing off-world technology, since so many such items weren’t automatically waterproof and ran the risk of short circuiting or suffering other water damage.

The dock took up a whole section of Britannic, built adjacent to the desalination and water purification areas. On the opposite side of the country was the Long Pier with its needle statue. The docks were wide and deep enough to hold twenty large space ships at a time, though it usually serviced only two or three cargo ships at a time, not counting the shuttle and drop-off ships which ferried people and goods from their planet to others, or vice versa. The ships didn’t rest on Britannic. Instead, the crews usually paused for a day or so once they reached their destinations.

Wally remember being young, perhaps five or six years old sitting cross-legged beside his mother, in awe that the whole Empire could be provided salt and water through the efforts of their own small planet and twenty ships. He had been very proud of his planet when he was six, ready to see the Academy and dedicate his life to bettering the lives of other less fortunate citizens.

Wally entered the dock through the staff-only door with a quick ID swipe, keeping close to the wall and wary of getting in the way of any of the many burly workers carrying shipments from one end of the building to the other.

Unlike going in through the front of the spaceport, which led to the boarding and ticket purchase areas, the staff entryway led to a few small halls and hanger bays filled with crates of salt and tanks of water, any checked luggage if the shuttle ship happened to have some out-going passengers for once, and stacks of replacement parts, fuel trolleys, and checklists. There was a hallways of secretarial offices, a room full of rations for longer cargo drops, and an electronically updated schedule displaying the takeoff times of all current ships in port, their hanger numbers, and their next departure times.

There were only two ships prepping for departure at the moment.

The first ship, the shuttle ship, was indeed supposed to be prepping. There was still a bit over an hour before its departure time at 06:00. A shuttle came daily on a rotating schedule of hours with food shipments, packages from off-world family members, and occasionally, with a person or two in tow. It was the shuttle that Wally always had his eye on when he checked ticket prices away from Britannic.

The second ship was not supposed to be prepping.

Cargo Ship BNC 105 was docked in the hanger about five doors down from where Wally was at the time. It must have been put into the system somehow, and thus accepted not only at the warp point but apparently by the workers as well, though Wally would have thought that Aiden was attentive enough to know when a ship wasn’t supposed to be in his dock.

Frowning, he moved away from the bulletin and down the hall towards the hanger, just as the loudspeakers on the walls began to buzz.

_Attention._

_Attention._

_This is a broadcast from the Britannic Warp Checkpoint._

_Cargo Ship BNC 105 to be forcibly detained for treason against the Emperor._

_Cargo Ship BNC 105 to be forcibly detained for treason against the Emperor._

_Repeat._

_This is a broadcast from the Britannic Warp Checkpoint._

_Cargo Ship BNC 105 to be forcibly detained for treason against the Emperor._

_Cargo Ship BNC 105 to be forcibly detained for treason against the Emperor, on orders from the military legions._

Wally stood stock-still on his spot in the hallway, mere meters from the door. For a long moment, it was quiet, with only the sound of his breathing in his ears.

Then, he heard the rumble of feet.

The door to the hanger opened. Wally went to the wall immediately, flattening himself up against it as a small army of dock workers flooded out—more dock workers than they would usually have working on a ship at one time. More than they needed! A ship usually rested for three hours between landing and takeoff, and fifteen people organizing and carrying on the supplies was usually enough. This hanger had been filled with more than thirty, each one clamoring to escape the treasonous ship.

Wally stayed pressed up against the wall as best he could, trying to not be swept away in the press of shoulders and frantic pace. Then, a hand gripped his upper arm and tugged him away from the wall and into the isle. He was knocked once or twice by some elbows before he managed to get close enough to his grabber to see who it was.

As soon as he recognized Aiden, he pressed up against him, more than happy to use his gangly older brother as a meat shield against the jostles of the other workers.

There wasn’t much time for explanations or conversation on the way out, not with the struggle it was just to avoid getting smothered in the rush of bodies. The hallway felt longer than Wally knew it to be, but they couldn’t break out of it soon enough. The moment the employee area of the dock was behind them, the push and shoving fell away and all the workers scattered, their heads down and not a word between them. Most of them began to move towards the residential district.

“…uck,” he heard Aiden said. He turned his head to look up at his brother. “Fuck. They moved fast this time.”

Wally jabbed him in the ribs. “It’s your own fucking fault for having so many people in a hanger at once! With an illegal craft? What the hell?”

“Shut up,” Aiden said. He turned his head left and right before taking a deep breath. “Shut up, I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“Covering our asses,” Aiden said. “Now shut up—what were you doing in there?”

“I saw a ship off schedule and came in to check out what was going on,” he said. Aiden grumbled something in response, something Wally couldn’t quite make out, though it certainly didn’t sound complimentary. “What were you doing?”

“Can I explain when I finish covering?” Wally’s face became grave. That was almost explanation enough. Aiden turned to him and rolled his eyes. “Oh please. You’re not gonna do anything about it. If you wanna know, run with me; I’ll talk in a bit.”

With that, he turned on his heel and wound his way back inside the dock, Wally following close behind. Instead of running back down through the hall of offices towards the hangers, he took a sharp left turn and opened a nondescript door which led to a staircase. Two flights of stairs later, Aiden pulled out his keyring and threw the door open to the dock’s security room.

The security room was a relatively small affair, and largely automatic. Though still functional, most of the technology hadn’t been updated in the last few years, and so lacked any vision of sleek modernity. The room controlled the cameras and intercom system of the docks: about ten monitors sat on top of each other on an otherwise empty desk. Beneath the desk was a pile of black, blinking boxes, wires, tangled cords and memory card caches. The desk was in the corner between a regulation large gray wall and a wall of windows showing the pouring rain outside. The room was deserted, with its only real use to record the happenings in the dock and several of the nearby blocks, including the block containing Braginski’s office. All the other functions the room had once been used for had been upgraded and could be managed remotely, leaving only the camera harddrives.

“You see anything I can break shit with?” Aiden said. “Crowbar, wrench, whatever?”

“What the fuck,” Wally said. He looked around anyway. “Uh. Um. Why? Why do you need a crowbar?”

“You may have noticed the tiny little detail of a ship taking off when it wasn’t supposed to take off,” Aiden said. “I told you, I have to cover some people’s asses right now.”

“You’re going to—dude. You’re going to be in so much trouble.”

“Yeah, well, I’m already probably on camera doing shit down there, so if they show up and want to look at the film, I’ll be fucked either way.”

Wally looked up at his brother, staring up with his mouth slightly open and his brows furrowed, like he was trying to puzzle out the words he had just heard. “ _Why?_ ”

“It’s complicated,” Aiden said, bending down and pushing boxes of machinery aside in his search for a wrench. “I guess the basic answer is, ‘fuck the Empire, I hate those assholes’? But that’s just me. If you wanna get out, get out now. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”

Wally stayed in the open doorway, standing very still. He held his elbows with either hand, keeping his arms close to his chest. “Oh,” was all he said.

“Arthur was on the ship,” Aiden said a moment later. “If you’re interested. The one that just took off. He looked like shit—like, he was dolled up in a whole new uniform, but he kinda looks like that train ran him over a little more recently than just three years ago. I don’t know if you care at all. Uh, fuck, also—you’re gonna have to look after Barky if anything happens to me, I’m kind of fucked right now as far as I know. Where the fuck is a wrench!?”

“There,” Wally said, pointing. Then, he stepped forward and grasped the object he’d pointed at. It had been painted black and in the pale light it had blended in surprisingly well with its backdrop of trash. “Well. It’s a metal bar, not a wrench, but it’ll work, right?”

There were many metal bars on Britannic. This one was only remarkable for being about the right size to be wielded like a baseball bat and being made of stronger stuff than the computers Aiden swung at.

They sparked like—like fireworks. Wally hadn’t ever seen fireworks before, but he was certain the sparks that erupted when Aiden’s swings threw the memory boxes against the wall were just as vibrant and exciting as any firework display.

He threw the monitors on the floor alongside the memory boxes and harddrives. They cracked open like square, metal eggs, spilling out the chips and wires of their yoke. Then, with a long backwind, Aiden took the metal bar to the window, shattering it and letting the rain pour in.

Wally stared. Aiden jumped back, doing his best to avoid the electrified puddle quickly growing on the floor. “Pieces of shit,” he mumbled, setting the metal bar aside with much more care than he had anything else in the room.

“They’ll find that,” Wally said, his voice low, his eyes still locked on the sparking puddle of their camera records. “They can probably trace it to you.”

“Whatever,” Aiden said. “If they just focus on tracing me, then there’ll be a lot fewer of the others found.”

“They’re going to kill you,” Wally said. “They’re going to kill  _us._  Why would you help the rebellion?”

Aiden didn’t answer him. He watched the sparks for a few moments longer and said, “I’m gonna hop on a carrier ship and hope I can find enough crew to get me off the ground. Since Barks’ unconscious, you’re gonna have to be in charge of everything.”

“You’re leaving?” Wally said.

“Yeah,” said Aiden. “Like I said, if they’re following me then they’ll spend less time looking for rebels here.”

“So that’s it,” Wallace said, clapping his hands together once, a note of awe in his voice. “The rebellion said they’d get you out of this shithole and you’ve just been waiting for them to finally do it. How long have you been planning to leave?”

“What? No. What are you talking about?” Aiden said, turning to Wallace, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“You want to get out of here,” Wallace said, beginning to move his hands empathetically as he spoke. “Because this place is a huge rotting pile of shit and there’s a whole universe out there that’s better than it, but you didn’t know how and then the rebellion contacted you somehow and offered to get you off-world and now you’re taking it! Take me too!”

“That—” Aiden said, opening and closing his mouth several times, blinking and shaking his head. “No. No, that’s really not how it happened at all. Or why. Or any of that. Especially the bit about here—I love it here. I kinda have to, it’s our home! I mean, yeah, it’d be great if we had better tech and days off and could pop out to visit other planets and whatever, but Britannic’s my  _home._ ”

“It’s a backwater planet that no one cares about until there’s a drought,” Wallace said. “You can’t seriously like it here. Take me with you.”

“I like it here.” Aiden scowled. “I like my job, and I like the people I get to talk to, and I like the temperature always being right, and I like the ocean, and I don’t give a fuck if we’re a tiny blip on a big map, maybe I like that too. If I’d known you hated it here so much, I’d have set you up for this and sent you off on your merry way, dodging the Empire and military and risking detainment. Does that sound like shit you wanna do?”

Wallace bit his lip. His hands curled into fists at his sides. Quietly, he said. “I think I’d still like that better than staying here.”

There was a long silence broken only by the sound of the rain and the fizzle of the shorted-out hard drives.

“You can’t just leave Barclay here all alone like he is,” Aiden said.

“A carrier ship’ll have room for a stretcher,” Wallace said. “We can load up enough IV packs to last him until we get to wherever it is we’re going.”

“A rebel camp,” Aiden said. “That’s where we’re trying to reach. You actually all right with that?”

“Anywhere’s better than being trapped.”

They left the security office without saying much more. The staircases seemed longer on the way down than they had going up.

000

Braginski was asleep again when they broke into his offices. Trashing the security room should have disabled the cameras on his block, but human witnesses were not so easily silenced, and Braginski had lived alongside them for two years—

It would have been better if he hadn’t been such a light sleeper. He emerged from his bedroom just as Wally slipped inside the supply closet.

“What are you doing here?” Braginski said, yawning, “There’s been no change in his vitals.”

Aiden stiffened, his hand on the door to Barclay’s room and Wally peering out, possibly hidden, from the supply closet. “Uh,” Aiden said. “Just go back to bed. It’s fine. Just checking in.”

Braginski’s faint ever-present smile shifted into something like a frown. “What’s going on?”

“Look,” Aiden said, his voice hardening. “Go back to bed, some rebels just tried to infiltrate Britannic and I guess you didn’t hear the announcement, but just go back to bed and lock your door, don’t come out until the military arrives. It shouldn’t be too long. Just stay calm and cooperate, this’ll probably all blow over pretty soon.”

Braginski nodded, quietly retreating back into his room without a fight. Aiden didn’t move until he heard the click of a lock on the bedroom door. Then, he breathed, “Sometimes I wonder what kinda shit that school puts into their heads when they don’t even ask questions.”

The moment Braginski disappeared, Wally rolled a gurney out of the supply closet, with several baskets hanging below the stretcher section filled to the brink with the necessary nutrient packs Barclay would need to survive. He rolled the whole setup into Barclay’s room while Aiden held open the door, swinging the gurney around to a stop at the side of Barclay’s bed and locking the wheels in place so the stretcher wouldn’t try to roll away as they tried to pack up.

First they plucked the IV drips currently in use and settled them carefully on the gurney, hoping they wouldn’t fall. Then they adjusted the gurney’s height so that it matched up with the bed better, making it easier to do the transfer.

“How long d’you think we have?” Wally said, helping Aiden shift their comatose brother from the bed to the stretcher inch by inch. “And why didn’t someone have an escape ship for you or a plan that they’d pick you up or something?”

  
“Military’ll probably be here soon. Stuff would’ve gone just fine and they’d have been out fifteen minutes before the alert came, but the loader’s broke and that slowed us down,” Aiden said, gritting his teeth.

“Barky’s gonna have a rude awakening,” Wally said, laughing, though not particularly finding it funny.

“Fuck yeah,” Aiden said, unclenching his jaw just enough for a dead laugh as well. “But it’s his goddamn fault for sleeping through all the action.”

The transfer was successful and quicker than Wally had imagined it would be. He set about strapping Barclay down to the cot so he wouldn’t roll off on any sharp turns or while trying to move him over stairs. While he was getting them ready to head out at any moment, Aiden crouched on the floor and pulled out his computer.

“Is it really the time for emailing your penpal?” Wally said, huffing, his nimble hands still on the straps of the gurney.

  
“I’m not emailing my penpal, I’m checking in so we know what’s happening—we’re going into lockdown,” Aiden said, frowning. “They’re—yeah. They’re blocking connection from the internet. In _tra_ net still works fine. Work for the next twelve hours postponed. Desalination shut down. Treasury is shut down. IDs required for entry anywhere. Everyone’s supposed to go to their residence blocks. Shit. Uh. Shit, cargo ships all in lockdown.”

“Uh, uh, there’s a shuttle,” Wally said, remembering the schedule on the door. “The shuttle’s docked here right now; it shouldn’t have left yet. They haven’t been put on lockdown as far as I know.”

Aiden flicked through screens on his computer, his jaw loosening. “Yeah, it’s still set to go. We’ve got twenty-five mintues. Hanger three. It’s the last one allowed through the checkpoint. It’s headed to Louie to stock us up on food; they’re gonna let us get one more supply run of food…”

“If we hop it, what’re we gonna do when soldiers show up there for us, though?” Wally said. “I mean. It’s not exactly as if it’s a secret where the shuttle would drop us off.

“Not important right now,” Aiden said. “There’s a couple rebels on Louie, and that’s better than nothing right now. It’s better than being stuck here when the military shows up looking for Arthur and we’re just standing around looking stupid.”

“But the checkpoint—”

“Still our best bet,” Aiden said.

Wally nodded and wet his lips. They both stood and wheeled Barclay out of Braginski’s office, Wally moving to the end of the gurney to help steer and Aiden discarding his computer and taking the side of the gurney where Barclay’s head lay, bracing himself to push. They checked the tubes briefly, making sure the drip-bag supplements were secure and that Barclay’s IV hadn’t been tugged out accidentally.

They carried him up the initial staircase onto the top deck of Britannic, and then, mindful of the slick roads, steered him towards the docks again.

There were very few people in the streets. The warning from before must have been broadcast on all the intercom systems, so while there were still some workers still milling around, most had retreated to their residence blocks, leaving the path to the dock as clear as they needed.

“Are we gonna be able to get in?” Wally shouted over the squeaking of the gurney’s wheels.

“Employee door,” Aiden shouted back. “Go straight through to the offices area and the sixth door down on the right should be the one we want.”

Wally nodded resumed focusing on helping them not lost Barclay’s gurney to a particularly slick spot. They reached the employee door within minutes and barreled right inside, pausing just a moment to enjoy the lack of rain and double check the IV and nutrient packs before rolling down the hallway to the offices.

They rounded the corner and found a wall.

“Was there supposed to be a wall here?” Wally said, his eyes wide. There should not have been a wall there.

It blocked off the entire area where the hallway to the hangers should have been, with only the thinnest cracks along the edge to expose it as not belonging to someone who didn’t know the layout of the docks.

A lone woman in a dockworker’s uniform stood beside the wall, looking startled and staring between them and the gurney. Wally recognized her face from his deliveries, but he couldn’t place the woman’s name at the moment.

“Excuse me?” she said. Aiden rounded on her.

“What the fuck is this?” he shouted, throwing his arm towards the wall in the middle of  _his_ hallway. “What the fuck is that?

“We were told to engage all the blast doors,” she said, keeping her voice level even though she was quickly lowering her gaze. They had blast doors? When was the last time anyone had used blast doors on Britannic? “We let the last shuttle’s crew through, first, but the doors are supposed to remain shut until further notice.”

“On whose orders?”

“The Emperor’s sir. The military,” the woman said, her shoulders hunching up to her ears as Aiden glared her down, his cheeks glowing red with anger.

“Well, I’m the head of the loading dock, and I need to get through!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, cringing. “We were told—”

“I don’t  _care_  what you were told; listen to what I’m telling you right now.”

“I can’t open them, sir, I don’t know—”

“ _Aiden_ ,” Wally said, jumping forward to grab his brother’s arm and stop whatever massacre this was bound to devolve into. “Aiden, hold up, I got another idea.”

Aiden scowled at the dock worker. He flicked his hand. “ _Get_.”

She scurried away, leaving them alone in the blocked hall. Aiden turned to Wally, face still colored and scowl still in place. “What?”

“I have money,” Wally said. “Money for about three tickets on the shuttle, if prices haven’t gone up.”

Aiden seemed to reel for a moment, blinking slowly and staring down at Wally, his mouth hanging open in shock. “You’ve got what? When? The treasury’s shut down.”

“It’s my money, my private, slightly stolen money,” Wally said. “It’s in an off-world account, so for now, I should still have it. They shut down  _our_  treasury, not all the banks in the galaxy. No one expects one of us to have money outside Britannic.”

“Can you access it?”

“I’ve got a card on me, yeah.”

Aiden swooped down, crouching low enough to scoop Wally into a tight hug. Wally squeaked, his arms caught in Aiden’s grip, and he struggled to keep his toes on the floor when Aiden’s hug lifted him. He was set down and released just as suddenly and unceremoniously as he had been scooped up.

“Let’s go,” Aiden said, hurrying back to his side of the gurney. With a tug, he began moving through the halls of the docks up to the commercial boarding and exiting areas. Wally trotted to keep up with him, taking his place at the foot of the cot and helping steer their eldest brother along.

They reached the boarding room without any trouble. The area was largely unused and arguably abandoned. Wally had never visited it, despite planning to for years, and he doubted Aiden spent much time in the area even though the docks were his jurisdiction.

They were completely alone in the room. On one side, closer to the exits to enter the rest of Britannic, were rows and rows of metal chairs, water fountains and snack machines. On the other side, towards the terminals, was a short line of computerized gates that were used for both ticket purchases and confirmation. The gates were largely square, free-standing doorways beside vertical, rectangular, gray touchscreen computers. The several-meter gap between each gate was protected by a ceiling-high force field, preventing anyone without a ticket from entering.

Aiden went to the computer closest to them and put a hand to the gate. It lit up with a faint blue light, but refused to admit him before he purchased a ticket, as a soothing feminine voice from the computer gently reminded him.

“Wally, card,” Aiden said, sticking his hand out. Without a word, Wally pulled out his cash card and handed it to his brother. He held it in one hand and tapped at the screen frantically. Words flashed by, and though Wally was too tense to pay them much attention, he still managed to read several. Shuttle name, hold number, departure time….

Aiden swiped the card in front of the computer and tossed it back to Wally without a second glance. There was a quiet rumble and the grinding of gears, and the sound of three small clunks inside the ticketing computer.

‘ _Please take your tickets from the cup_ ,’ the computer’s audio said. Aiden reached his hand into a little pocket below the screen of the computer and pulled out three small, golden pins shaped not unlike an old-fashioned shield, with a pointed base and two concave arches on the top. ‘ _Please attach your tickets to your clothes before passing through the gate. We hope you enjoy your flight._ ’

More carefully than he had thrown the card, Aiden handed Wally the small golden shield. It was smooth. Wally ran his thumb over it before pinning it to the lapel of his gray uniform. In front of him, Aiden did the same before bending down and doing the same to Barclay.

He glanced up, his long fingers midway through fastening, and caught Wally’s eye.

Neither of them had the will to smile, though it would have been the moment to do so. Instead, they both took a breath as Aiden straightened up and turned to face the gate.

He walked towards it, his shoulders set and face tilted downwards, bracing himself just in case he ended up walking right into the force field. But no such thing happened. Aiden walked through the gate without the computer saying a peep.

Once on the other side of the gate, he paused and turned to look around, as though making sure he was in fact on the side of the gate he wanted to be on. This time, when he caught Wally’s eye, they both grinned and gave out a little whoop of victory.

“Wally, you’re a fuckin’ genius!” Aiden said, laughing. The lines that had begun to crease his forehead disappeared. Wally laughed with him, relief sweeping his body for one beautiful moment. He took the foot of the cot and began to push Barclay through the gate as well, Aiden taking his place and helping to pull once the front of the cot first came through.

When Barclay’s waist was halfway through the gate, the gurney stilled.

Aiden paused. “Are you pulling him back?” he said.

“No, I thought you were stopping me from pushing,” Wally said, stilling as well, a frown on its way to his face when the computer spoke once more.

‘ _Boarding passengers that take up two seats must purchase an additional ticket_.’

Aiden froze. He snapped his head up to stare at Wally. Wally stared right back. His grip on the cot tightened until his knuckles turned white.

  
“I… don’t have enough for a fourth ticket,” he said, lifting one shaking hand to his pocket and pulling out his cash card once more, checking his balance. “I-I have some leftover, but not enough. I can’t—do you?”

Aiden shook his head. “I didn’t… I never thought I’d need…”

  
Aiden sidestepped Barclay’s cot and tried to return through the gate to Wally’s side. A faintly visible blue force field held him on the terminal’s side of the doorframe. His eyes widened. Wally swallowed.

“The pin,” he said. “The pin’s got you as a boarding passenger. If you take it off, it’d probably let you over here but—”

“—But I wouldn’t be able to go back, ‘cause I’d have to leave the pin on this side,” Aiden finished for him. He took a deep breath, his long spidery hand coming up to rest on the force field. “Right. And then we’d be fucked.”

Wally nodded.

“Um. Uh. Can we push him back through to my side? And then we’ll set him upright and I’ll shove him through to you or something,” Wally said. “If he’s upright it’s only one seat, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Aiden said, moving to the back of the cart to push immediately. Barclay budged, his torso slipping out of the gate towards Wally more, but he was halted in his tracks once more when the force field came several inches close to his pin, holding the upper third of his body on Aiden’s side.

“Are you kidding me?” Aiden said.

“That is the most bullshit feature I have ever seen,” Wally said. “What the fuck would someone even do for this in a normal situation if they couldn’t pay, just leave who-the-fuck-ever stuck in the gate until security took them?” he looked around. “Did security  _run away?_  Where are they?”

  
“Fuck.  _Fuck_. What’s gonna happen to Bar?” Aiden said, not listening to a word Wally said. His question wasn’t even directed to Wally, but up to the ceiling. To the arch of the building Aiden had spent his life working in, its gates betraying him. “He can’t even argue with whatever they try to do right now.”

Aiden stilled suddenly to look down at the pin on his chest, and then sharply up again at the ceiling. He snatched the pin from his lapel and chucked it as high as he could above the gate, where it sparked and was sent flying back down to the ground.

“Goes all the way up to the ceiling,” he said, muttering. He picked the pin up again and, careful to not touch the force field himself without having his pin attached, pulled Barclay as far through as he could go and attached the pin to his midsection. It didn’t do any good; Barclay didn’t budge any further, not even an inch more of give that would have allowed them to worm him through the port slowly. Aiden made and awful growling sound before taking his pin and attaching it to his collar once more, glancing around the room, fingers twitching.

Wally glanced down at his comatose brother, and then up at Aiden, who had begun to pace the walkway on the other side of the gate, his hands in his hair and his teeth barred into a snarl. He tried to speak twice before succeeding.

“Hey, Aiden… Hey. Aiden.” Then, louder. “Aiden, pay attention to me! You said you saw Arthur?”

“Yeah. I did. Didn’t say anything. He took off. Interstellar space. It’s done,” Aiden said, speaking quickly and immediately dismissing the subject with a wave of his hand. “I’m fucking trying to figure out what to do right now, Wally, shut up.”

They had maybe an hour before military ships descended on Britannic, Wally guessed. Maybe less. He checked his wristwatch, and they had about fifteen minutes before the last shuttle left the planet to abandon them to their fate—whatever it would be. And then there was Aiden in front of him, hair mussed and trying to guess how many of the rebels here would know how to actually hack a computer, not just by putting in passwords they weren’t supposed to know but how to transfer funds, make money available. How many people had been like Wally, hoping to leave one day; how many would be willing to give them their savings? How long would they have to find them and get what they needed? Barclay was growing more atrophied by the day, absent for months, and if he woke up now then he would wake up to a world crumbling around him and be unable to walk on his own.

There was a part of Wallace that had half a mind to stick out the pin on his chest, squeeze around the stretcher, slide right through the gate in front of him, and rush to the shuttle as fast as he could, leaving Britannic and his brothers far behind without another look. That was Llewellyn. That was someone who wanted to survive, and explore, and live, and he wanted that with all his heart.

And then there was Wally, who stared down at his brothers and the world crumbling around him, and wondered if one day he might make another chance to leave his home behind.

Wordlessly, he took the pin from his shirt and attached it to Barclay’s slacks.

Aiden paused in his pacing, his hands falling from his head as he turned to stare at what was happening on the other side of the gate. “Wally?”

“Pull him through,” Wally said.

“Wally, no, wait, you can’t stay here,” Aiden said, putting his fists back against the force field.

“Aiden,” Wally said, staring down at his feet. “Pull him through and get him on the shuttle before it takes off or I lose my nerve.”

Aiden’s hand scraped the force field.

Wally snapped, “ _Do it_ , bastard.”

Slowly, with awful hesitance, Aiden did as he was told, taking a hold of Barclay’s cot once more and watching with horror as the computer accepted Barclay’s claim on two seats.

“Wally, there’s got to be a way to get you through here,” Aiden said.

“Maybe, but I’m never going to find it if you waste my time by standing there like an idiot,” Wally said. It was hard to keep his voice steady, but staring at the metal floor helped. The metal floor beneath Aiden’s boots. He stared mostly at Aiden’s boots. “Now hurry the fuck up.”

“Asshole,” Aiden said. He began pulling Barclay’s cot along, watching Wally with wide eyes all the while. “I’ll come back for you.”

“Get on that shuttle and sit your ass down,” Wally said. “I’m coming to you.”

Aiden moved. It was as good as a goodbye as they would get if Wally couldn’t find a way in. Aiden wheeled Barclay’s cot around, getting in control of it and proceeding to rush it towards the loading terminal, disappearing into it. Wally turned at the same time, dashing in the other direction, finding the next computerized gate he could, not sure what he could do but the first thing that came to mind was shoving his card at the ticketer.

‘ _Inadequate funds for ticket purchase_ ,’ the machine chirped.

Wally mashed his fingers against the buttons, searching for a cheaper flight he could pretend to be boarding for if nothing else.

‘ _Inadequate funds for ticket purchase_.’

‘ _Inadequate funds for ticket purchase_.’

‘ _Inadequate funds for ticket purchase_.’

Wally growled and grabbed the closest thing he could find—a metal chair several feet away in the waiting area—and smashed it against the computer. The chair broke before the computer did. After three blows, the leg Wally was holding the chair by creaked and detached from the main body of the chair. Undeterred by the chair seat tumbling to the floor, Wally held the leg in his hands and rammed it directly into the computer screen, plowing it straight through. A jolt of electricity shot through him, sending him springing backwards.

With a gasp, he looked down at his hands and found they were pinking. An alarm went off from the loudspeakers, announcing his violent vandalism and calling for the dock security to subdue him. Wally threw himself towards the gate of his wrecked computer, but found himself blocked by another force field—this one glowing red when he smacked up against it. Okay, so the computer’s wellbeing didn’t control the force fields like he’d hoped.

He groaned and hobbled backwards, away from the gate, rubbing his shoulder and squeezing his zapped hands to try and counteract the pain. Feeling confident security weren’t about to try and deal with him, Wally turned and ran out of the building.

He twisted around on his ankle once he felt the first drops of rain hit his face. He looked up and around at the shell-like outer walls of the dock building, searching for a way in besides the doors.

With any luck, Aiden and Barclay would be on the shuttle by then. He looked down at his watch once more. He had about ten minutes until takeoff.

Perhaps he could climb? If he could go to the edge of the dock’s rim and find some footing, he could probably slip inside the building in time to catch the shuttle before ascent, since once past the gates, the force fields wouldn’t be in affect. It allowed the dock workers to move much more freely on the job.

It could work. Maybe. He’d have to try.

Those thoughts heartening him and the memory of the departure time still fresh in his mind, Wally began to run around the perimeter of the dock, searching for somewhere with a good foothold. His heart skipped a beat when he saw a tall ladder on the side of the building, but it only went partway up with no other footholds at the top. Wally climbed the ladder anyway, scurrying up as quickly as he could, only to realize at the top that there was no way he could scale the side of the building unaided. Perhaps Aiden would have been able to find a path, experienced with climbing as he was, but Wally couldn’t. He slid back down the ladder, slicing his palms with the speed. He ignored the burn and crouched on the wet streets, trying to think.

Six minutes until departure.

He could—

No he.

But if he—

That wouldn’t.

But—

Hadn’t Arthur broken a force field?

Wally stood and began running again, this time not sure what he was running for or where he was running to. He ran back inside the dock and threw himself against the force fields. Maybe there was a glitch! Maybe, for a split second, if he threw himself at the right time, the force fields would fall.

He was thrown back fourteen times before he slumped against one of the red gates, panting and bruised.

Three minutes until departure.

He stood again and ran out of the docks, first running left, then right, when he realized he’d already run left on his escapade to try and scale the roof. He ran to the right, searching frantically for cracks in the walls. But the walls were metal and cement, and they had held up for years with nary a scratch, Wally reminded himself. Perhaps there was some other hallway deep in the bowels of the dock that hadn’t been sealed off, or one of the blast doors had a hole in it from disuse; perhaps if he went inside the employee’s entrance again and made a systematic search—

Faintly, he heard the sound of engines.

Wally stopped breathing.

Not for long. But long enough for him to hear and—and yes—yes.

Those were the rumble of engines.

He stumbled away from the dock as if repelled. He craned his neck upwards, squinting and cupping his eyes in a vain attempt to keep the rain out of them as he watched the shuttle rise slowly out of the top of the dock.

It was ovular, fish-like, and its shell was dark blue, almost invisible against the cloudy sky. Its windows glowed brightly for now, though they would darken once in the reaches of space. But for now, the windows glowed bright yellow and if Wally squinted through the water quickly filling his eyes, he could almost imagine he saw a tuft of bright red hair through the windows.

He was wet from running, any tears indistinguishable from the rain streaming down his face from his scalp and dripping from his uniform’s sleeves.

Calves bruised and feet sore, Wally turned and ran.

He followed the shuttle’s course, knowing it by heart after years dreaming of watching it.

It flew up, up, seventy meters into the air and went careening over the beacon tower, past the residential blocks and doctor’s offices, and finally passed the Long Pier and its Needle to soar towards their sun.

Wally ran the ground course beneath it, shoving past anyone who got in his way, shouting warnings to anyone who dared try to stop him from running. Few people did, and those who dared, he elbowed aside without remorse. He slipped on the wet steel and nearly fell when taking a shortcut between several crate storage warehouses near the residential district, into the areas where cameras still were functioning, but he kept running as long as he could hear the rumble of the ship above his head.

By the time he reached the Long Pier, the shuttle had overtaken him and was already cruising over the churning ocean towards their yellow sun.

Wally collapsed beside the Needle, his hand reaching up to brace him against the black metal of the statue. It was cold and wet, and soothed his injured palms.

He gasped for breath, his lungs burning inside of him and his eyes stinging in their sockets. His feet felt like they were blistered, though he knew that he hadn’t been on them long enough for that to be the case.

Despite his aches, and his breathlessness, and especially despite the stinging in his eyes, Wally stared out over the ocean.

The shuttle grew fainter and fainter as it ascended, soon only a small ovular silhouette disappearing into the clouds.

He was looking at it one moment, and in the next moment, it had been swallowed. Soon to ascend further and pass through the atmosphere and into interplanetary space. To elsewhere.

Wally stared at the place the shuttle had been. Just moments before. Minutes before, it had been on the ground, here on his home, within reach.

Wally stared at the place the shuttle had been. A scream rising up in his throat.

In thirty-five minutes, the first military craft would descend, and Wally would still be at the foot of the Needle, watching the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stab me in my sadly nonexistent balls because god fucking damn it I can’t go a single AU without trying to figure out where these bastards fit into it. They’re like really ugly children I never meet to speak with or grow attached to, but here I am. 
> 
> The three are basically me and Dyrimthespeaker’s very strange very OCs for the British Isles. We made them up roughly around the time that the Pixiv!Scotland was popular, and poor Barks started out as very much the stereotypical Pixiv!Scotland. As you can see, he’s swallowed a fridge sometime in the intervening years.
> 
> So this chapter is basically the real test for my worldbuilding and character building skills. Because if I can make people care about three assholes who they’ve got little introduction to in an environment they haven’t seen before, then I have succeeded.
> 
> The title for this chapter comes from "Devour" by Shinedown. Since it’s optional, I broke my titling theme for a chapter. 
> 
> 000
> 
> Tidbits about the bros: 
> 
> -Aiden is extremely athletic, despite looking like he spent most of his life severely malnourished. In another universe, he would prefer to live in a place with friendly nightlife and lots of horses while participating in fox hunting and eventing.
> 
> -Barclay falls in love slowly but deeply, and not necessarily romantically; unfortunately, he’s as loyal as he is bashful. In another universe, he might’ve been a painter, living on his own for the most part, watching beautiful things and feeling a comfortable amount of control over his house.
> 
> -Wally has an active imagination and vibrant love of storytelling, but it’s hard to enjoy stories when you violently wish you were the main character. In another universe, he would prefer to have an empire of his own, but he’d settle for a quiet place to call home base where he can come and go as he pleases.
> 
> 000
> 
> U wanna talk about a dead-end town, lemme tell u
> 
> Britannic is one of the planets that actually benefits from the Empire establishing a universal time frame. While on planets like Louie, things get confusing with the Empire’s time contrasting with the planet’s natural rotation, planets like Birtannic, which don’t rotate, need the mandated time reference in order to keep track of things like who sleeps when and how long they’ve been there and etc. because otherwise they would have infinitely long days.
> 
> Britannic’s theme is "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
> 
> _Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time!  
>  Raise your hopeful voice, you had the choice, you’ve made it now! ___


	10. Fireside - Arctic Monkeys (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ludwig does his job.
> 
> Warnings for this section: Medical malpractice, surgery, politicking [emotional manipulation and blackmail], death

Ludwig wasn’t sure what to think of his new job. He was nervous, as was appropriate, yet he was also somewhat—what word would be— _apprehensive?_

He had operated on humans previously, certainly, but experimenting was

It just

It felt like a line somewhere should have—

Something.

The words weren’t coming. None fit into place quite the way he wanted them to. None of them quite accurately conveyed what he was feeling as a deep settling weight in the pit of his stomach. Like bowel movement, though the pressure wasn’t on exactly that spot that indicated bowel movement. It was like someone had gently tied a red ribbon around his lungs, not preventing his breathing, but just tightly enough that he wasn’t quite expanding inside as he should have been. He had an absurd thought, briefly, that this weight in his chest (a small tool forgotten and abandoned during surgery, right at the base of his sternum? Perhaps. That may have been an accurate feeling,) was never going to leave and he would be forced to carry it around with him forever.

Ludwig was a man of accuracy, not flowery words, but his accuracy had failed him. All he knew was that this,  _whatever_  it was, made him increasingly uncomfortable.

Kirkland had been a special case when he had been experimented on. It hadn’t been just an experiment, it had been a live-saving one. It had been a small miracle, if one believed in such things as miracles. The Angel had saved Kirkland’s life and the lives of many soldiers. The Angel was winning their war. The Angel was a beacon of hope in science and engineering, a testament to what could be achieved. It was also the result of an experiment preformed without the patient’s consent, and if he could do it over, Ludwig knew that if Kirkland refused, then the man Ludwig was now would not operate.

More than all of those very true facts though, what contributed most to Ludwig’s acceptance of what he had committed on Kirkland’s body was the understanding that in his youth, his moral compass had required guidance he wasn’t always given.

Feliciano had been wonderful about that. Wonderful about understanding it, anyway. It wasn’t as though Feliciano was innocent (a prude, a flirt, a frequent blasphemer, a participant in the Angel’s construction, a regular attendee of executions which were kept secret and hidden from all but the Caers and those above them) but Feliciano and Ludwig’s innocence had little to do with the young man strapped down to the operating table with one of Ludwig’s new assistants injecting a needle into his neck.

  
Ludwig watched the young man’s terrified brown eyes grow hazy and unfocused.

He looked familiar, the man—boy—on the operating table. Ludwig did not know him, and he was unrelated to anyone Ludwig would have known. Born on a mid-ring planet, a blasphemer and violent criminal. Murderer of three people, two of them young children.

He looked like he couldn’t have been much older than fifteen. He had chin-length silky black hair and almond shaped eyes with deep circles beneath them.

“Please,” he whispered. The assistant ignored him. Ludwig stood at the foot of the boy’s bed, just close enough to hear. “Please.”

His eyes reminded Ludwig of Kiku Honda. A miscreant pretending to be an amateur pornography when they were in the Academy together, Kiku was currently elsewhere, in some other government position, giving back to his empire and benefitting society above and beyond the call of duty, as was expected of all Academy graduates. Ludwig still thought of him frequently enough. After their first few poor meetings, they had bonded over the advances in their respective fields brought about by the Angel’s conception. Their friendship was relatively brief, but powerful, and they still occasionally spoke, though not with the frequency that Ludwig interacted with those he was physically closer with, like Francis and Felicano. But this boy on the bed looked so much like Kiku when Ludwig had first caught him taking pictures that his heart ached.

“He’s ready, sir,” the assistant said. Ludwig blinked out of his stupor.

The boy had gone still and his eyes had closed.

  
Ludwig nodded, his throat tight.

“Thank you,” he said. “Please, if you would? I prefer to work on my own for a while from here. I’ll set up the camera myself as well. Thank you.”

The assistant left, closing the door to the room afterwards. If they were disturbed by the youth of the patient on the table, they did not show it.

Ludwig had been given many things with his promotion: A private operating room to practice in, a whole group of assistants several years older than himself, and a small army of voice-operated robot assistants for when Ludwig did not want his human assistants who were a bit clunkier though still efficient. Finally, he was given a private offline camera to provide higher quality, more direct reference when he needed to look over his work. He did not yet turn the camera on, though he did move around the gray operating table to set it up for when he was ready for it.

The brown-eyed boy was drooling out of his mouth once the camera was set up properly. He was stripped naked on the table with only the thin blue sheet covering him from neck to toe. His feet stuck out the end of the sheet, and on the sole of his foot was a tattoo, the type given to cadavers. “L. Li,” and a serial number.

Ludwig did his best to now dwell to deeply on the tattoo. He would be too busy trying to focus on the pre-prepared mechanical parts he was going to try and insert into the boy. He had already done repairs many times on Kirkland and personally installed many of the parts the first time around, but it was one thing to add new parts to a mutilated body. It was another thing all-together to alter an already healthy, unbroken body. Perhaps that was another source of Ludwig’s discomfort. Perhaps if Ludwig could locate all the sources of his discomfort, he could quash his unease once and for all and get on with his job. Certainly, all doctors in their great lord’s employ had experienced this churning feeling and overcome it.

This was his job. He had taken the doctor’s oath and sworn devotion to serving the Emperor by extension many times now: that he would do his job to the Empire gladly. He repeated the oath in his head then. He pictured his father’s disappointed face—he pictured  _Feliciano’s_  disappointed face. He pictured Gilbert with a failure of a doctor as a brother, Gilbert forced to guard his failure brother’s door instead of guarding a highly respected heir.

Ludwig took a deep breath, trying to break whatever it was stopping his lungs from expanding all the way. He imagined physically pushing the discomfort out of his body. This was of course impossible, but after several deep breaths, he did feel better.

This was a criminal on his table, Ludwig reminded himself. A blasphemer, a murderer. He had chosen this path. This experiment may very well have been the greatest good the boy would ever be able to do. Even at his age, if he was already a murderer, there was nowhere else for him to go but down. His choice. There was little else for Ludwig to do except try to help him do something beneficial. Something to help generations to come.

A small dark spot had formed on the table from the boy’s drool. Wordlessly, Ludwig covered the boy’s face with a blue cloth, so he would not have to look. He exposed the boy’s naked chest. He woke the robot assistants and called them over. He raised his marker, then his scalpel. He would do his job.

Ludwig was very good at his job.

000

On his living room couch, Ludwig heard Gilbert from the front hall. “Feliciano, there’s something up, can you—”

Ludwig bellowed before thinking, “ _How did you get his number?_ ”

Gilbert silenced immediately, his computer shutting off with a ‘click.’

Ludwig regretted his shout as soon as he realized he had in fact shouted. What was he about to do, accuse his brother of sleeping with his boyfriend? Be jealous that they were speaking at all? Ludwig’s shoulders slumped and his arms went slack, and Gilbert’s pale, thin face peeked around the corner.

“Gilbert,” Ludwig said, his voice much softer now, though with how stifling the apartment was all of a sudden, there was no question that his brother could still hear him. Gilbert moved fully into the room, at military attention with his back straight and his chin up. “I’m sorry. It was a rough day. I’m sorry for yelling. You can go back to your call.”

Ludwig meant it as a dismissal. Gilbert had been dismissed so many times in so many different ways that there was no real way he could have not recognized this one, not coupled with the tension in Ludwig’s jaw and the way his eyes searched the wall. Instead of making a hasty retreat out of the room, as Gilbert usually did when dismissed by a family member, he stood stock still until Ludwig sighed and turned his back, sitting down on the living room couch once more.

He heard Gilbert shuffle to the kitchen, and put it out of his mind until a minute later when Gilbert emerged again with two glasses of alcohol. Wine, of course, was the most popular alcoholic drink on Pompeii, but Gilbert had been raised on as little money as their father could spare, and therefore didn’t have much of a history with wine. Ludwig, perhaps out of some subconscious desire to emulate his brother, had instead acquired a taste for beer ever since moving out of their father’s house.

Therefore, it was two large mugs of beer, not wine, which Gilbert carried towards the couch where Ludwig sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“Here,” Gilbert said, setting down the first glass on the low table in front of the couch before flopping down beside Ludwig and kicking his feet up onto that same table. He took a sip of his own mug of beer. “Drink. Talk.”

Wordlessly, Ludwig took his hand from his face and picked up the cup. For a while, he drank slowly, sipping the top. Gilbert drank beside him, his feet (still in his boots, still on the table,) twitching in time to a song only he could hear.

“A boy died on the operating table today,” Ludwig said.

“Oh,” Gilbert said. He set his cup down and leaned over to put his hand on his little brother’s back. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

“He was fifteen,” Ludwig said. “His heart gave out unexpectedly.”

“Can’t you fix that?”

  
Ludwig nodded. “I had him in a maintainable state, but my request to go through with an emergency transplant was denied. They didn’t let me have a flesh replacement and I don’t know how to make a mechanical one. Kirkland’s heart is  _altered,_ but it’s still—it’s still largely a biological heart. We patched it. We didn’t rebuild it. I’ve never—I don’t know how to. And they wouldn’t grant me a team to develop one on such short notice.”

“And his family pulled the plug?” Gilbert said, his voice low.

“No. I pulled it,” Ludwig said. “There was no family.”

Gilbert’s arm around him tightened. “I’m sorry.”

He watched Ludwig drain the rest of the beer. Gilbert poured the reminder of his own beer into Ludwig’s mug.

“But you’ve had people die on the table before, haven’t you?” Gilbert said. “So what’s got you hitting this one harder? Is it ‘cause he was young?”

“Maybe,” Ludwig said, gratefully drinking the rest of Gilbert’s beer. “I don’t know. He was a criminal. I shouldn’t—”

“— _Nneggh,_ ” Gilbert hissed, cutting him off. “Life is important life even if it’s also illegal life. Remember?”

“Right,” Ludwig said, for a moment unintentionally turning his head and looking directly Gilbert’s unnatural red eyes and pale skin. “Right.”

Gilbert waited.

Ludwig sighed.

“It was just quite upsetting. He looked… well, he was very frightened right before the surgery. Perhaps that was it.”

Gilbert nodded. He patted Ludwig’s shoulder and slid his feet onto the floor again, rising. “There’s only one thing to do, then. Where’s your spare parts collection?”

“What?” Ludwig said. “Uh. The, uh, back closet outside my room. Why? Gilbert? Where are you going?”

But Gilbert was already up and moving, darting like a pale bullet through the house to root around in the back closet and make another pit stop in the kitchen. By the time he returned to the living room couch, he was precariously balancing two boxes worth of scrap parts, a toolbox, and a case of beer in his arms. He set it all down on the table with a bang.

“Here you go,” Gilbert said, easing back into his seat on the couch, this time keeping his feet on the floor.

“’Here I go’ what?” Ludwig said, staring at the mess before him.

“Build a heart,” said Gilbert. “I can go get your computer and references, too, if you need them, or I can run into town and get more specific parts. Or I can just keep bringing in beer. But if this happened because some kid couldn’t get a heart, then you, the Academy’s most brilliant doctor-engineer-lovechild, will build a heart now before the next crisis.”

Ludwig stared at his brother. Gilbert stared right back, his red eyes challenging.

“Do you have anything to do tomorrow?” Gilbert said after a moment of silence.

“Work,” Ludwig said, his eyes not leaving his brother. “And a checkup with Kirkland.”

“I’ll call the hospital and tell them you’re taking a day,” Gilbert said. “And I’ll tell Bonnefoy to bring Kirkland over for a home visit. Maybe he can help you de-stress afterwards. You need anything for Kirkland that we don’t already have here?”

Ludwig blushed and shook his head.

“Good,” said Gilbert. “Then I’m going to go get some sausages and nachos, and you’re going to start making that heart. If you don’t know where to start—left ventricle.”

With that, Gilbert quit the room, returning again to the kitchen to cook.

Ludwig did not know that Gilbert knew how to cook. He didn’t think on that long enough to question it, too busy staring down at the boxes of parts in front of him, wondering which combination of titanium and pumps would make a rudimentary left ventricle.

000

Despite being the only son of one of their Empire’s revered, beloved, and honorable Consuls, Gupta did not consider himself a political force. He was only fifteen, home on a short vacation from the Academy at his mother’s bequest.

Gupta was quiet but attentive. He knew this about himself, and he knew that though he was not particularly methodical, he was easily bored, and when he was bored he tended to make lists to pass the time.

This was a list he had made since returning from the Academy to Pompeii:

Pompeii had fewer pillars, but more winding streets.

The Academy was like a diamond: very slanted, very pointy, with four watchtowers, four walls, and four railways separating them from the rest of the moon.

Pompeii, for all its main streets were organized, was little more than a sprawl once city planning gave out and allowed all the various districts to rub up against each other.

The Academy had only one large building, and that was the Academy building itself. Therefore, with nothing to dwarf or drown it out, the night sky was clearly visible from anywhere on the Academy’s moon.

Pompeii was made of monsters and skyscrapers. Pompeii was always lit up like a supergiant, always trying its best to outshine the sky.

The Academy was a place for brilliant youth. There were many younger people around Gupta’s age, all eager, and nervous, and full of verve for a brighter tomorrow in the Empire.

In Pompeii, there was only one other person Gupta’s age.

That was possibly the greatest difference of all.

Herakles had refused to go to the Academy, and there was nothing Consul Helen could do to change his mind.

It wasn’t exactly a scandal—Herakles, like Gupta, was largely composed of several basic concepts, but while Gupta was patient, adaptive, and most comfortable when in the familiar, Herakles was stubborn, curious, and painfully aware of just how intelligent he was. It rubbed several people the wrong way when Herakles used his “but I  _know_ ,” rebuttal a little too often.

One of those people was Gupta’s mother.

“That  _boy_ ,” Consul Hathor said as they walked down the halls of the main capitol building, where they and many of the other important political figures of the galaxy resided. Though the halls were crowded, Lady Hathor had people parting in front of her like seas, and she spoke without really caring who would hear—she and Lady Helen had an understanding about their boys—while Gupta and his bodyguard trotted to keep up behind her. “He will get in trouble one day and regret ever having put up such a fuss!”

Gupta would have liked to have ignored his mother on this particular rant. He liked Herakles, and he had heard enough complaints about his friend for the day. They were long. They were tiring. They were boring. He would have rather gone back to his lists. It wasn’t going to happen, though, for not only did Gupta respect his mother enough to know he shouldn’t ever ignore things she told him, she was also speaking so forcefully that it would have been a feat to ignore her at this point.

His mother demanded respect. She demanded to hold attention. She demanded that Herakles go to school. Two out of three was not a bad track record, but she disagreed. Three out of three would be an adequate track record; anything less was simply worthless.

So Gupta trotted along dutifully behind her, occasionally glancing back to make sure his bodyguard, Sadiq, hadn’t been caught in the reforming crowd.

“What’s he going to do with himself now? Not able to be a general, not able to be a scientist, can’t even write books with how he is! Can hardly count. It’s a waste of a good brain. I know you like him, dear, but don’t let that lagabout rub off on you.”

She turned to look at him. Gupta quickly nodded. It was a sufficient response, and she continued marching on to turn around the last corner that led to their residence.

She brushed past the guard standing outside her door, unlocking their home with a swipe of her ID. There was also an option for handprint and iris identification, but those were only for use if they had somehow gotten locked out. Gupta followed his mother inside.  Sadiq broke from behind them, instead closing their door and heading to the other side of the hall where his own living quarters were.

Their residence was large and spacious. Lady Hathor’s favorite color was yellow, and the walls had been painted accordingly, with green, blue, and red accents to offset it. Their front hall opened to a dining room—eating with the family, Lady Hathor believed, was the key to keeping trust and an open dialogue, even if the family consisted of only two people— to the left was their large kitchen with a roofed stove and various utensils Gupta was only just learning to use. To the right was their bedrooms and master bathroom, with a bathtub that sank into the floor and potted plants, real plants, which were watered by a very accurate sprinkler system on a daily schedule.

His mother had apparently already prepared a meal for them before meeting Gupta at the spaceport, or perhaps had set the kitchen to automatically make a meal for them by the time they returned, but either way, she entered the kitchen and returned a moment later with a large bowl of kushari—a pasta made with tomato, sauce, rice, lentils, chickpeas, and garlic. She set it on the table between the two set placemats that were already present before disappearing back into the kitchen again for more dishes and plates.

“It looks very good,” he said quietly when she returned, scooping some of the kushari onto his plate.

He sat and ate. His mother sat across from him, filling in his silence with words of her own.

It was how it had always been. Just the two of them, with Gupta not quite sure what to say, and his mother trying her best to relieve him of the burden of speech. It was nostalgic, in a strange way, for Gupta knew he would come back again to visit later, but it also felt so long since things had been this way. He had only been away at the Academy for several months since his last vacation, but what long months they had been.

Gupta liked this, he decided, scooping up his first bite and chewing it slowly. He liked being fifteen and on vacation from school, listening to his mother talk, now that the topic had moved away from his friend.

“The planet’s got its own atmosphere already, and it’s got lots of ores we’re lacking right now, but before we even try to do much more than landing the probes and rovers we have to start thickening the atmosphere, so we’ve told Britannic to increase production so we can start experimenting with plants sooner.”

Gupta nodded, listening.

“But apparently the Angels’ been stolen,” she sighed. “So we’re sending troops to march on Britannic.”

Gupta glanced up from his food to show his mother he was interested. The war machine had been stolen?

“It won’t affect  _us_  much, so don’t worry. Your friends at the Academy will be fine too. The only ones hit with any water shortage should be on outer ring planets or the newer colonies. But they can survive a while without extra salt and they should have a reserve of water, if not their own sources they should be able to use temporarily. I just worry that even the slight  _fear_ of the water running out might cause trouble. And it’s just inconvenient that the ones we’re trying to terraform right now will have to be put on hold, what with how the populations are growing and the demand for ores going up just as fast.”

Gupta nodded and swallowed his mouthful of pasta. When his mother looked over to him, he said, very softly, “Britannic?”

“Mh, I forgot,” she said, taking a drink. “We think that’s the route the thieves took to escape, so somehow rebels must have infiltrated the infrastructure there. There will probably be a purge—security camera checks, seeing who was around the ships, relations of rebels, those sorts of things. There will be some here as well, though to a lesser extent. The Angel couldn’t have been stolen without the help of an inside agent, so there will be a cursory check of anyone who knows its make. It’ll hopefully all blow over soon, but in the meantime, poor Kirkland’s beside herself.”

Gupta nodded.

“It’s not her fault, really, but she should have spent less time here trying to keep Britannic’s voice up and spent more time instead making sure her planet itself was secure. With any luck, her family will avoid most of the flack. But it’s not looking the best for them at the moment.”

Then, unexpectedly, his mother stopped eating and lifted her head to look directly at Gupta. He paused as well.

  
“You will make a much better leader in the future,” She said. “Make sure to learn from the mistakes you will see here in the coming days.”

She didn’t say anything else, apparently waiting for some sort of response—a nod, a headshake, not necessarily a verbal response. Gupta had a verbal response, though. He furrowed his eyebrows and shifted a bit in his seat, and said, “I don’t have a planet.”

“Of course you do,” she said, her voice low and smooth. “You have Italia.”

After dinner, they moved to the living room to have coffee and mint tea—tea for Gupta, coffee for his mother. She began to speak once more, telling him in her deep voice how she had made plans, plans for him.

Startled, Gupta glanced around the living room to try and spot the cameras and microphones.

There were none.

000

Some days Cam did the usual thing. Standing in hallways. Walking around buildings. Don’t smile. Don’t make too much chitchat. Don’t think of the kitten the size of your upper body you have back in your apartment, chewing up all your socks. Think about futility. Get a song stuck in your head. Stand in the hallway. Walk around the building. Stand in the hallway. Walk around the building.

Some days, like today, Cam was freaking out a little bit inside, because he was guarding Feliciano Vargas’ door, and someone who wasn’t supposed to be inside was inside, and Gupta Muhammad Hassan was staring him down.

“Sir,” Cam said, glad again now for his military training, as instead of sinking into himself, he habitually straightened his back and stood a little taller. Not that it was helping him to deter the boy much. “He’s meeting with someone right now.”

“Announce me,” Gupta said. “I need to speak urgently.”

Cam had been under the impression that Gupta did not speak urgently, or even speak very much at all. In fact, as he tried to think of what to do, Cam tried to remember the last time he had ever heard Lady Hathor’s son speak in the hallways.

He might have scolded Adnan? Once. Perhaps.

Sadiq Adnan was also staring Cam down from over Gupta’s shoulder. While Gupta was almost a head shorter than Cam, Adnan was a good inch or so taller and one of the last people Cam wanted to tangle with if he tried to turn Adnan’s charge away.

He nodded, slowly, and said, “One moment,” before turning around and tapping Feliciano’s door and turning on the intercom. “Sir? Gupta Muhammad Hassan is here to speak with you. He says it can’t wait.”

For a short while, there wasn’t any reply, and Cam was about to knock again when he heard Feliciano’s voice through the small speaker (meant to keep intercom conversations as private as possible—nothing of Feliciano’s was bugged. The Emperor adored his heir, and would not tolerate even sanctioned spying on him) chirping, “Come on in!”

Cam opened the door.

Feliciano’s quarters were nothing like his brother Romano’s. While Romano over the years Romano had turned his residence block into a cocoon, Feliciano had turned his into a café.

Not literally, of course—not even the Emperor’s grandson would be able to get away with inviting people in willy-nilly the way a café would imply, but he had been taken with the aesthetic. His room was very open, with low ceilings and lots of space, the color scheme largely a variety of calming greens. There was a bar along one wall with a fully functional kitchen built into the wall. The rest of the room was taken up with several tables and openings to the bedroom and bathroom, and the closets. The front and back areas were littered with art supplies, boxes, and bags full of nonperishable ingredients that apparently didn’t fit in the cupboard behind the bar.

In the middle of the mess sat Feliciano, perched happily in a cushioned chair with Gilbert Beilschmidt standing by the wall. Feliciano stood when the door was open, waiting for Gupta to enter.

No one commented on Gilbert’s presence, though he should not have been there. His hood was pulled up and his head was down, but slivers of his pale skin could still be seen at the right angles. There was no one else in the room for Feliciano to pretend he had been talking to someone other than Gilbert, but it was too late to worry about that now.

Sadiq Adnan stepped in behind Gupta, seeing Gilbert by the wall. Without seeming to notice, Feliciano said, “Cam, why don’t you come in and have a seat for a while?”

Adnan stiffened but no one protested, so Cam stepped in behind the two guests and closed the door behind them.

There was a tension in the room, and Cam decided immediately that even though he wasn’t sure where the tension came from, he would have rather been left outside.

“Gupta!” Feliciano said, oblivious to the set of Gupta’s shoulders and the arch of his neck. “I don’t see you very often, this is exciting. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Coffee,” said Gupta. His face was tight and his mouth hardly moved when he spoke. Feliciano didn’t mention it, but just gestured enthusiastically for a moment before hurrying over to his bar area and preparing some coffee while Gilbert stepped away from the wall and pulled out another chair for Gupta to sit in.

“Does anyone else want coffee?” Feliciano said. He glanced briefly toward Cam but his gaze lingered on Gupta’s bodyguard.

“No, thank you,” Adnan said, though Cam could tell he was paying very close attention to the machine and mugs. He wasn’t sure if this meant that Adnan did want coffee but was refusing due to his position, or if he was expecting Feliciano to poison Gupta in front of him. Gilbert moved to pull out a third chair. Adnan said, “I would rather stand.”

“So what brings you here?” Feliciano said, returning to his chair with two small mugs of coffee on a tray laden with cream and sugar. Feliciano set the tray on the nearby low table, taking one of the mugs leaving the other for Gupta, who cradled it gingerly. “You said it was urgent?”

Gupta nodded slowly, holding his mug of coffee and not drinking it. “I need to talk to you about your inheritance.”

Feliciano blinked. Cam looked around. Adnan’s face was impassive, but Gilbert had begun to frown. At least for once Cam wasn’t the only one out of the loop.

“My inheritance?” Feliciano said, “You mean my status as heir?”

Gupta nodded. “I—” he paused and took a shallow breath in through his nose. “My mother. She is loyal to our Great Lord Romulus, but in the event of his death or displacement, she would not support your ascent.”

“Wait,” Feliciano said, pausing and leaning back some in his seat. “Wait, wait, wait, are you trying to warn me about an attempt on Grandpa’s life? Because I would not be the one to talk to about that.”

Feliciano’s eyes went to Cam, and then to Gilbert. Cam shifted his hand to hover over the gun in his belt. In front of him, Sadiq Adnan stiffened, his hand also going for a weapon no doubt. Gupta, without turning his head or even looking away from Feliciano, held out his hand and stilled them all.

  
“No!” he said. “She would not hurt him. I came to talk because she wants to place me as the next heir, and I do not want that, and I came to affirm my support for you in your ascension in exchange for her safety if an event does take place.”

“Oh,” Feliciano said, sighing slowly. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, but only very slightly. “Well good. But if that’s all, then why did you have to bring your bodyguard inside?”

Gupta glanced behind him, as though remembering for the first time that Adnan was indeed there. “Habit,” he said.

“You trust him a lot?”

“More than your door guard,” Gupta said, glancing back towards Cam.

“Cam’s my friend!” Feliciano said, turning to smile at him. Cam tried to smile back, still not entirely sure how to react to anything Feliciano said or did. Friend was not a term he would personally use, but he wasn’t about to argue with Feliciano Vargas about technicalities. “But it’s good to trust your guard that much, especially when you say those kinds of accusations about your mother.”

“Do you accept my agreement?” Gupta said, frowning, his gaze once again focused on Feliciano.

“Do you not think you’d do a good job ruling?” Feliciano said, sounding truly curious.

Cam wished again that he’d been allowed to stay outside.

“I do not wish to rule,” said Gupta.

“What do you want to do, then?” said Feliciano. “With how your mother is, I would’ve thought would want to be a Consul at least.” He sipped his coffee and then realized Gupta wasn’t answering. “Do you know what you want to do?”

“I would rather be at the Academy,” Gupta said.

“Teaching? Or orchestrating?”

A noncommittal head nod was Feliciano’s only answer.

There was a brief stretch of silence that seemed to linger much longer than it actually did. Feliciano’s eyes wandered about his room briefly, as though he had to familiarize himself with all the occupants one more time before speaking.

“Can I ask kind of a weird question?” Feliciano said, and he waited just long enough for Gupta to nod before continuing, “You said you’d support my ascension over your own. Would you support my taking over from grandpa, though?”

Gupta blinked at him and paused before saying, “I don’t understand.”

“Well I mean everyone’s got who they’d rather be in charge, I guess? And someone has to change reigns eventually. But if you had to pick between me and my grandpa, who would you rather be under?”

“No comment,” Gupta said.

“I’m not going to be mad!” Feliciano said. “I mean. You don’t know me as well as you know grandpa I guess. And I guess Lady Hathor’s obviously had her say. But would you be content with my grandfather leaving his position?” he glanced at Adnan. “Honestly. If you trust your bodyguard enough to be honest in front of him, anyway.”

Gupta stiffened. “Excuse me?”

“Grandpa’s done a lot of upsetting things,” Feliciano said, his voice still bright and chirping. “I mean. I’ve noticed them, anyway. Or did you not know about the executions and mass slaughters? I mean. I guess they probably altered the numbers in the reports that were sent out.” 

Adnan placed a hand on Gupta’s shoulder. “We should leave,” he said.

His hand tightened on Gupta’s shoulder as Cam shifted closer to the door and Gilbert tilted his knees where he stood by the wall. Though Adnan wore a face covering, Cam could still see the outline of his eyes as they narrowed. Adnan had realized it, then. Cam and Gilbert’s duty to Feliciano no longer stopped at his position of being the Emperor’s son.

“Gupta,” Feliciano said, standing up and moving closer slowly. “I’m not saying your mother’s been lying to you. I’m saying she’s probably been trying to protect you from an awful thing, if she even knows at all. My grandfather needs to be replaced. Soon. And I’d welcome your help and reward you for it.”

“I did not come to have this conversation,” Gupta said. Now standing, Feliciano was much taller than the young man. To his credit, he did not back away despite being stared down by the Emperor’s grandson. Instead, Adnan stepped forward to wrap a more protective arm around him.

Then, Feliciano said, “Back off. I’m speaking to Gupta, not your shoulder.”

“You’re threatening him,” Adnan said, hissing.

“I’m doing no such thing,” Feliciano said. “I’m just talking.”

His gaze turned to Gupta again. Gupta swallowed, visibly taking a breath before saying, “You can back up, Sadiq.”

It was a long five seconds before Sadiq did as he was told.

“Thank you,” said Feliciano. His shoulders slackened again. Both their mugs of coffee had been discarded on the tables, undrunk.

“But I still don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Gupta said. “Or why me.”

“You were the one who came to pledge loyalty to my ascension,” Feliciano said. “I’m assuming you came of your own will and not because your mother put you up to it. But regardless, you’re here and you promised, and I’m willing to reward you and protect your family’s status if you’ll take on a more active roll in helping me claim my throne.”

Gupta was hardly breathing. The air in the room felt much heavier than it had when they first walked in. “What is it you’re trying to do?” he finally said.

“I’m sure you know about the rebellion against our Empire,” said Feliciano. Gupta nodded. “What they want isn’t to destroy the Empire. They want our Empire to stop interfering with their affairs. I’m willing to give them that, but grandpa won’t, and they hate him too much by now to trust or agree to that if he offered it, anyway. They want grandpa dead, not the Empire, but if they have to try to take the Empire down to get to him, they will. Violent dissolution at this point would be chaos.”

Gupta nodded again.

“But they don’t mean that much, since they’re outside and we’re in here, safe and sound, out of their reach. Or, it didn’t mean much until recently. You know about the Angel Assaults, don’t you?”—another nod—“Arthur Kirkland’s gone missing. Without him, no Angel Assault can occur. The rebels are undoubtably going to hear about this and try to use this moment of weakness to seize the best chance they’ve had for an attack in years. We need to take advantage of that. Do you understand the situation Pompeii’s just been placed in, with one of our greatest weapons—your greatest defenses—gone? But if we do things quickly enough and have enough support, we can change the powerbase before more people die meaningless deaths. We can let the war go and try to focus on fixing the problems we have on hand already.”

Cam perked up as Feliciano spoke, not ever having heard of Arthur Kirkland before. Even though he was recruited by Gilbert, he still felt like he was missing large amounts of information, leaving him always searching for the hint that would let him figure out what exactly their small inside resistance was up to. Still, it was only because of Gilbert that he knew as much as he did. He could only imagine what the other members of the resistance knew—

Only a select handful even knew about their inside man’s identity, but Cam was staring at him right then, watching him shatter a teenager’s resolve to refuse right in front of Cam’s eyes.

“The people you’d give autonomy killed your parents,” said Gupta, frowning and biting at his lower lip.

Feliciano nodded, his hand on Gupta’s shoulder, replacing the hand Adnan had reluctantly removed. “And I realized how it hurts to have the people you love die.” (He wasn’t smiling, but for some reason, Cam imagined him doing so.) “And if you can understand the suffering of others, you can have the drive to change it. For every revolution, there must be people in places of power willing to facilitate change, unless you want to slaughter the entire ruling class. That would leave us in the exact same situation we’re in right now. Just different rulers, and different downtrodden. So tell me, Gupta, do you want them to kill your mother when they come for us?”

000

There was no one who hated Feliciano like Romano Lovino did.

There was no one who loved Feliciano like Romano Lovino did.

There was no one else who Romano Lovino would allow into his room the same way he would allow Feliciano in.

No announcements.

No pat-downs.

No screaming.

Sometimes Feliciano left accompanied by screams, but he never entered with it, and that was possibly the most impressive thing of all. Feliciano’s screaming or Romano’s screaming: it didn’t matter much. They had both inherited quite the pair of lungs. Neither of them were shy about it.

Today, Feliciano entered the room quietly. Like a ghost or a figment of the imagination. Romano was curled on his bed, his red duvet wrapped around him. Though he did not see his brother enter the room or sit on the bed, he felt the dip in his mattress and the hand searching along the creases of the covers until Feliciano came to Romano’s head. He ran his fingers through Romano’s hair.

“Hey,” Feliciano said.

“You did something,” Romano said. “What did you do?”

“Mmh,” Feliciano said. His weight shifted and the next thing Romano knew, the remote control for his police procedural was in Feliciano’s hand and the volume was being turned up slowly. Slowly becoming louder.

“Oh,” Romano said. “This is about your thing to kill Grandpa.”

His brother made a quiet noise and lay down beside Romano in bed, arm still wrapped around him and hand still trying to card through Romano’s hair. Romano reached up and tossed the hand away from his face, but he allowed the cuddling. Feliciano did not touch his hair again.

“What did you do this time?”

“Gupta’s going to spy on Consuls Hathor and Helena, and try to gather support from the next generation in the Academy,” Feliciano said.

“Ballsy of you, recruiting the Consul’s son,” Romano said. “He’s fifteen,”

“I know,” said Feliciano.

“You’re four years older than him,” Romano said. “He’s a kid.”

“His mother’s setting him up for a course that he doesn’t want to go on,” Feliciano said, “I’m helping.”

“Yeah. Yeah, fuck you, I know. You’re always helping.” Romano snorted. “Has your helping found out what they did to Marie, yet?”

“Not yet,” Feliciano said.

“Useless bastard,” Romano mumbled into his blankets. Feliciano’s arm tightened around him. “Stop that. Fuck off. Go find your giant potato with legs and stop bothering me.”

“I will later,” Feliciano said. “I thought I’d spend some time with you, though. Since you hate me being with him so much. I thought you’d like that, instead.”

Romano scoffed, tugging the blankets from Feliciano’s grasp and wrapping them tighter around himself. “I don’t hate him because he’s your boyfriend and my ex was spirited away in the dead of night, never to be heard from again—”

Feliciano made a noise in an attempt to interrupt. Romano barreled right through.

“—I hate him because, shut up Feli, I hate him because he’s one of  _those_ doctors, and you know fucking what? I bet the reason you can’t find her anymore is because somewhere along the line, she passed over one of his test tables and there wasn’t anything left when he was done.”

Feliciano was quiet for a moment. Then, he said, “Ludwig isn’t…”

“Your potato with legs,” Romano said, “is the same one you’re scared to have a fight with, in case he winds up on an operating table too. Isn’t that right?”

“Romano, no,” Feliciano said.

“Romano, yes,” Romano said, rolling free of Feliciano’s arm entirely. “I’m tired of being a pawn in all this. I’ve taken myself out of the game as much as I can. Let me know when we need a cleanup crew. Until then, get the fuck out of my room.”

000

Ludwig entered his private operating room the following day to find the human assistant injecting the sedative into the neck of a young woman on the table, strapped down and stripped naked with a tattoo on her foot.

She had his eyes.

They were full of fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gupta loves his mom very very much.
> 
> 000
> 
> Herakles isn’t really important in this fic. I just like the mental image of him lounging on the staircase with his leg out trying to trip the Caers while chatting up Gupta. Gupta loves knowledge, and Herakles is a bastion of useless facts and speculation. Gupta takes some of it with a grain of salt (he’s got his own ideas about things) but he does find it really interesting to listen to some of Herakles’ ideas, even if he disagrees. Sometimes he adds input. Other times, they just keep going until Sadiq explodes and starts lecturing Herakles on “that is not how things work you fucking idiot” and then he and Herakles get into a shouting match about the nature of the afterlife, and whether the exodus from Earth-That-Was was a natural course of expansion verses a desperate bid for survival, and whether Caer Kirkland has actually ever had sex or if that stick up her ass was what impregnated her. Gupta thinks it’s funny. Antonio, Herakles’ bodyguard, just stands in the background, occasionally commenting, but recently he’s taken up juggling knives. Antonio is really, really used to Herakles’ chatter by now, and he has a very short attention span.
> 
> And I’m just saying. Gilbert is trying to have the healthiest sibling relationship this fic is going to showcase. Gilbro.
> 
> I was going to have the first person Lud operated on be Hong Kong, but…. I realized HK graduated way back in CH 1 and is probably alive and well. I guess either that’s an OC or HK went and really fucked up with a time machine somehow.
> 
> I’m all out of pre-written chapters… back to the weird ass update schedule again. I hope you all enjoyed this giant wordcount doubling mess that I sort of sacrificed my July to.
> 
> 000
> 
> Dear OFF fandom: Please don’t be upset with me. I stole your line. But it is! Such! A! Good! Line!! God, I love OFF.  
> Hey. Hey, hey. Anyone reading this that wants a fun free computer game to play. Go find OFF by mortis ghost. It is so good. So, so good. Don’t look up anything about it before you play it though, it’s so hard to avoid spoilers, but basically it’s a puzzle game/rpg and you’re controlling this dude in a baseball outfit called The Batter who is here to purify the Zones from specters with his baseball bat and the holy trinity of Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon. It has a wildly unique soundtrack, an engaging and thought-provoking plot, and the minimalist art style is a unique but good fit for the content. As I write this A/N, Markiplier is actually doing a Let’s Play of it!! It is very good and you should all go check it out. But I swear to god, if anyone spoils him before the ending…  
> —Purification Complete!!
> 
> 000
> 
> Have fun with Feliciano! Here’s a song for him: Tightrope by Janelle Monae


	11. Set Fire to the Third Bar – Snow Patrol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur was a different person before the accident.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: impoundment, referenced brutality and deprivation,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The deeper I get into this fic, the more I feel like I can’t do these topics justice.

FIVE YEARS AGO – DOMINUS ACADAMIA

“Kirkland?”

Arthur looked up from his tablet. For a moment the sudden change in lighting blinded him. His tablet displayed his schoolbooks with a backlight so strong that he wasn’t sure if his headaches came from too much thinking or eyestrain. Still, he was a damn sight better looking than Francis was at that moment.

Francis came half-stumbling into their dorm room, looking slightly concussed, and rubbing his temples.

“Interrogation not go well?” Arthur said, doing his best not to sneer. He must have failed, as Francis huffed and shoved Arthur aside to sit on his bunk.

“No, they went great. Professor Marshall lectured me about my beautifully forming ego and how it would obstruct literally anyone trying to get information out of me, until I start saying things simply to prove I’m important enough to have information at all.” Francis requisitioned Arthur’s pillow and laid down his head on it, palm pressed against his forehead. “And then I passed out.”

Arthur made a sympathetic noise and got up to fetch a glass of water. He brought it to Francis and made the fool drink before saying anything else.

“I’m not sure why you’re still taking that class,” Arthur said. “Considering every time you come back, you’re about as useful as a dead horse.”

“Eat me, I’m not stopping now. Egotism. Why do  _you_ keep taking chemical weaponry?” Francis shot back, even as he shifted himself up to drink the offered water. “Mr. I-Don’t-Want-To-Hurt-Innocent-Bystanders?”

“Fuck you,” Arthur said, looking back at his tablet’s screen. “There are _advantages_  to chemical weaponry, but I want to be able to control the effects.”

Francis snorted. Then he groaned, so he must have hurt something when snorting. He drank more water and stayed quiet for a few moments longer.

“Seriously, though, what happened this time?” Arthur asked, eyes still not leaving his class’s text. “You look like shit. How long were you gone, actually?”

“About a day, I think,” Francis said, looking down at the watch around his wrist, squinting of the numbers. “What’s the date?”

“It’s the twenty-first.”

“A day, then,” Francis said. “I must really look bad if it’s only been a day and they let me go.”

“Trying to toughen you up?”

“They have been. I suppose today they decided to go easy.”

“ _Why_  are you in that class?”

Francis drained the rest of his water and held the cup out to Arthur again, who sighed and took it. Refilled it. Returned it. He watched as it was drained again.

Francis’ eyes flicked up to him and back down again to the cup several times before accepting that Arthur wouldn’t speak again until his question was answered. Francis sighed again. He spoke between sips.

“You remember my dad, right?” he started with.

“No,” Arthur said.

“Well. Right. He died in the first few weeks I was here. But remember what I told you about him?”

“That he was in the fleet?”

“Mh,” Francis said, finishing the second glass easily. It was again refilled. “That. Yeah. Guess who’s going to replace him?”

Arthur pointed to Francis. Francis pointed to himself and said, brightly, “Ding.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and swatted Francis’ hand down before lowering his own—he suppressed a guilty wince when Francis flinched away from the swat. “And that has to do with the interrogation class, how?”

“Fleet commanders get interrogated too, you know,” Francis said, cradling his swatted hand. “Being in the middle of enemy territory and all. Arranging landing crews. Supervising strikes. On-the-go strategy. There’s no way to actually know if it’s safe to land or not, so—so sometimes you get caught and have to hold out until help comes. It’s not  _quite_ a mandatory class, not like Management, but… it’s recommended. You know.”

“I bet it’s just so the upperclassmen can beat the shit out of underclassmen,” Arthur said, huffing and shifting closer. He pulled his legs up under himself and sat on his ankles, taking a moment to bookmark his place on the table before flicking through several screens.

“Arthur,” Francis told him. “We are literally the second oldest tier in the academy. There’s only one level of upperclassmen left. And they don’t beat the shit out of us, they—”

“Dehydrate you?” Arthur said.

Francis sipped his third glass of water and said, “And yell a lot. Probe into deep insecurities. Rupture your trust of humankind. Keep you awake for hours on end. Play loud music.”

“But not beat the shit out of you,” Arthur said, furrowing his eyebrows and scowling. “You’re actually way too calm about that.”

Francis shrugged, the movement much smoother than it would have been when he first entered the room. The water was doing him wonders, apparently. “Perhaps. But I’m going to need actual food soon, so if you would?”

“Ninny,” Arthur said. For a fourth time, he rose from his bed, struggling a moment to get his legs out from underneath himself. He rifled around in their snack storage this time instead, a small box stuffed underneath Arthur’s bed, filled to the brim with nonperishables and rehydratables. He found a can of dehydrated vegetable soup and, knowing it would be offensive to Francis’ sensibilities, immediately went about popping open the can and pouring cold water into it. Not before tossing Francis a small bag of salted crackers first, of course, but there was only so far dry salted foods could take them.

“Thank you, mon ange,” Francis said in his most sickeningly sweet voice as he opened the packet of crackers. He put the wrapper aside to be set in the biodegradable bins outside their doors later; at the moment it might have been quite the walk.

“I don’t understand your dumb language,” Arthur said, watching the soup clump start to separate and mix into the water, swelling. “This is your own fault, honestly. If you’d spend less time in the library or out all night at parties, maybe you’d have been rested enough to actually stay in your class for more than a day before they got concerned.”

“Maybe, but there’s not exactly a guarantee I’ll be well rested if-or-when I get captured in the field, either,” Francis said. “And you aren’t much better in that regard, if I recall.”

“I don’t party,” Arthur said, rolling his eyes.

“And I don’t stay awake all night reading pornography, but nobody’s perfect.”

If Arthur hadn’t had a can of rehydrated soup in his hands and Francis hadn’t looked so pale, Arthur would have strangled him. Instead, he settled for turning redder than the soup’s broth and stuttering out obscenities.

“I—am— _studying_ —!”

“Yeah,” Francis said. “Porn.”

He had the wickedest grin on his face. Arthur was about to pour the soup out on his head in to wipe that expression off.

“I hope,” Arthur said, saying each word clearly in case that helped them permeate Francis’ brain despite the thick layer of asshole. “that one day. You will appreciate. The kindness I now show you.”

  
“I always appreciate you, Arthur,” Francis said, that terrible grin still in place.

“Ass!”

“I love you, too.”

“I will smother you in your sleep. I will rend you from this moon. I will throw you out the goddamn window, so help me, Bonnefoy.”

He gave Francis the soup and a spoon to eat it with, glaring all the while.

“I  _am_ studying,” Arthur said when Francis did not stop smirking. “I  _am_. You don’t even understand what my mother would do if she found out I wasn’t getting top grades.”

“One of the few perks of not being in a Caer family, I’m sure,” Francis said, now taking small mouthfuls of soup and making a face each time.

“Fuck off,” Arthur said. “It’s not that great.”

“I’m sure,” Francis said.

Arthur grumbled. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. This time, Francis did give him a moment to breathe, apparently having realized he’d touched a nerve. Arthur rolled his shoulders back and tried to ignore the cracking of his bones. He had spent most of the day hunched over his tablet and it hadn’t helped his back much.

Finally, he said, “We’ve got a simulation for strategy this afternoon. You there?”

The sound Francis made was both disgruntled and revolted. Arthur held up the tablet calendar he’d pulled up to prove his scheduling.

“Are you going to be up to it?”

Francis swallowed his soup. “I’ll be fine. This is just absolutely not the way I wanted to get back into things. I actually feel like sleeping for several hours, for once.”

Arthur nodded and took his place back on the bed, curling up in his spot once more. “I can wake you up. If only for the chance to crush you and your troops again.”

Francis took an angry bite of his soup and huffed, “You say that as if it matters when someone as weak-willed as you manage a victory against me through sheer dumb luck.”

“You say sheer dumb luck, but our track record says if you were in charge of the rebels, I would have served them to the emperor on a silver platter by now.”

“If I were in charge of the rebels, the emperor would not be around to be served anymore,” Francis shot back.

They both glanced out at the cameras in the room.

“But that’s only because of our fantastic training here,” Francis continued without much of pause. “The rebels as they are only survive through the incompetence of those who went before us.”

Arthur nodded, eyes peering out at the dorm’s entrance to be sure it didn’t lock on its own. “True. We owe this place and the emperor everything; especially you.”

Francis nodded back. When the door did not go into a lockdown and no stern warnings were issued, both stopped looking outward and once more turned their gazes back to each other.

“When is the simulation?” Francis said.

“At seventeen-hundred, I think. Earlier, if they’re planning to make us deal with a sneak attack,” Arthur said.

“What I’m going to do,” Francis said, “Is take you prisoner.”

“Mh?” Arthur looked up and slowly took up his own grin, his eyebrows raised up in amusement. “Me? And what will you do with your poor prisoner?”

“Interrogate them, of course,” Francis said. “Until you’re convinced to take the classes as well.”

“I’m too old to start the program,” Arthur said with a huff. “ _You_  don’t even like it!”

“Yes,” Francis said, raising his free hand up to tap Arthur on the forehead. “But if it means I get to see you struggling to have class with a group of twelve year olds, I’m willing to get my friends in the tech department to fuck with your schedule next semester.”

“You wouldn’t,” Arthur said, batting the hand away more gently this time.

“I wouldn’t,” Francis conceded. “But you’ll never exactly be in danger of having to keep your mouth shut, will you? Being a strategist and all.”

Arthur nodded sagely. “Far from all human contact, I shall weld myself inside my extremely classy apartment building and only come out for battles of the utmost importance.”

“Mmh, yes, just don’t put me in too much danger while you’re doing that, all right?”

Arthur laughed. “What? The future hero of the fleet scared to get himself wet?”

“No, the future hero of the fleet says being a hero of the fleet is about the same as being a martyr, and he prefers his head firmly on his shoulders, thank you,” Francis said, sticking his nose up into the air. “Besides, we don’t even know exactly where the rebels are. For all we know, I could lure them out of hiding by going exactly where people don’t expect me to.”

Arthur just shook his head this time, though he was still smiling. “That’s your clever plan? Impress the Empire by saying you’re using yourself as bait for an enemy that’s already preoccupied?”

“Isn’t it brilliant? And I don’t even have to die.” Francis turned outward to face the cameras. “Tell me I’m brilliant, lovers.”

“Don’t ask them to respond!” Arthur said, gawking and smacking Francis’s arm harder than he meant to. Francis yelped and cradled that arm to his chest, spilling some of the soup, but somehow he started to laugh all over again, even as Arthur frantically chastised him.

Francis laughed until the next wave of hunger and thirst hit him, and then he finished his soup as Arthur glowered at him over the tablet. He passed out not long after, only to be roused several hours later.

They rose on shaky legs to go to Strategy and begin the newest game.

The setting was a planet with widely varying climates and extreme conditions, including an ever-boiling sea and an ice cap covering half the western hemisphere. Find the rebels, kill the rebels, blow up the base, move out. There was no indication of how many rebels existed on the planet, and no set end time.

“It makes sense,” Arthur said, tapping his pen against his cheek. “We can’t exactly assume they have a single home base. They just sort of operate out of basements on planets that are already Empire.”

Francis nodded and huffed, leaning his thinning face on his hand and muttering, “It’s a wonder they have any army at all, with how widespread their resources are.”

“There’s probably a sort of concentration  _somewhere_ ,” Arthur said, moving to chew on the end of his pen instead and watching the four students in the immersive simulators go at it with troop movements and weaponry imports. Neither he nor Francis had been chosen to assault anything this time, which at least took the major stress out of the class. Today—or for the next week, however long the simulation lasted—they were simply observing and critiquing, learning from the mistakes of others and working to apply them in their own strategies, and writing several essays a day. “Or multiple home bases. Probably on moons or generational ships.”

“But how many?” Francis said, wincing a bit as one of their classmate’s troops caught a virus which was starting to rapidly sweep through his digital troops. “And how many do we just never see? There would have to be a substantial number of people to even power a generational ship.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair and stretched out his arms when the teacher’s back was turned, cracking his back once more and wincing at how loud it was. “More than enough to populate a planet of their own, I’d bet. Maybe several planets.”

Francis bit his lip and did his best to not laugh loudly enough to draw attention.

“That’s an awful lot of people to hide for so long. They came from different planets and moons, sure, but—”

Arthur shot Francis a sour look, and Francis stopped laughing.

“…You’re serious about thinking it’s that many?”

“I don’t see how they could stage a threat to the Empire without unprecedented numbers on their side, considering all the other strikes against them,” Arthur said. “They’re numerous, and quiet. And they’ve been surviving.”

Francis thought that over for a moment, tapping his chin and humming quietly. “All right, sure. But where exactly would they all fit that we wouldn’t think to look? Planets have golilocks zones that are constantly monitored, same with our moons, and the rebel’s known moons are sparsely populated enough that it doesn’t take much to find and exterminate them. Aside from individual ships, where else is there?”

Arthur shook his head. “That’s not the right question.”

Francis frowned but leaned forward in his desk, a finger in his mouth, chewing on the nail. “Oh? Then what is?”

“Francis,” Arthur said, leaning over close and whispering, “How long has this war been ongoing?”

000

PRESENT DAY – PRIEN

Prien was exactly as the reports had described it:

Barren, scorched earth.

Arthur stared from the observation deck within the ship, having been allowed out of their secure hidden room not minutes before, his hands pressed against the glass and his nose leaving an oily smudge whenever he moved.

As far as his eyes could see, that was all that greeted him. They had landed in a valley—a wide valley, one large enough to see from the edge of space. The visible planet surface was shades of brown, black and gray, with flecks of a pallid, dirty yellow, like an egg gone rotten. The only greens and blues he could pick out where lichen. Jagged rocks jutted out of otherwise smooth landscape. The sky was faintly purple with nothing to decorate the horizon but stars.

Prien was a dead world.

It had been bombed extensively at some point after the violent assaults reduced its neighbors to rubble. The Empire had dropped the moons. Left the rubble hurtling through space and, caught in the gravitational field, sent most of the meteors crashing into Prien. What little the falling debris didn’t annihilate, the bombs and following firestorms had, sweeping the planet with dust and poison. Even now, years later, lichen was only just beginning to reclaim the earth.

The only man-made object on the surface of the planet was their carrier ship, its landing gear digging into the soft ground; any remnant of former homes or businesses was gone. They and been rolling around the planet’s surface for the better part of an hour, searching for some sort of landmark. Now, they sat in the shadow of a great bridge-like rock, its gnarled supports still supporting a ledge high above their ship’s bow.

“The base, your home,” Arthur said, his throat tight, “Did they…?”

A hand fell on his shoulder. To his surprise, it wasn’t Francis who had come to comfort him, but Matthew, who leaned close to his ear and whispered. “It’s all right. Just wait for them to get ready.”

“Get ready?” Arthur said.

As he spoke, the ground began to shake.

He braced himself against the window, letting out a muffled sound of surprise at the same time Francis did. Beside him, Matthew was struggling not to smile, though he did also brace himself against the window as the ground around their ship began to sink as one piece into the ground.

Behind him, Arthur heard Francis curse in his own language.

He expected to fall into darkness as the cliffs of dirt rose up around them, and for a time they did. Then, very suddenly, there was light.

They descended into a cavern.

Arthur’s eyes adjusted to the comparatively dim lighting almost immediately, thought the rest of the group around him remained squinting out into the vast room they had entered.

There were strings of yellow lights dangling from the ceiling, illuminating the crowds of people below.

Francis mumbled another curse and gripped the rail, looking out over the many faces that looked up at them. A small electric tremor ran through Arthur’s shins and up his sides.

“I guess we’re expected,” Arthur said, his voice little more than a whisper.

“We already knew that,” Francis said, not looking towards him, but wrapping an arm around Arthur’s shoulder. “It’s the reception that matters. Whatever happens, just don’t give them any reason to think we want anything but refuge.”

Arthur nodded.

The ship descended into the cavern as the skylights closed above them.

000

Arthur was shunted into the cell with no Francis Bonnefoy beside him.

He didn’t make a sound.

Neither did the cell.

There was no buzzing of wires in the walls or the quiet hum of cameras. There were no windows, not even a fake hologram one; the only exit was a single metal door inlaid and bolted to the stone walls.

A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, far out of Arthur’s reach, with only a thin cord of thread to act as a switch. The bulb lit every corner of the tiny cell, which was so cramped that if Arthur were to lay down with his head to one wall, his toes would brush the wall opposite. There was no cot (no  _room_  for one), no pillow, no blanket.

There was a toilet with no water in it, the bare bulb with a thread for a string, and Arthur.

The door had bars on it, but they were blocked off from the outside, giving Arthur the strangest feeling of being back in the hidden room on the ship

No Matthew and no Francis beside him.

He chose a corner—the one opposite the door and beside the toilet—sat down with his knees to his chest, and waited.

000

Gilbert’s room was—

Well. It was a room.

It was square. 3 by 3 meters. It fit his bed, a birdcage, a minifridge, a large video screen on top of the fridge, a microwave on the floor, a gaming station on top of the microwave, a chair, a rug, and two doors to his one-square-meter-each closet and bathroom, which held all his clothes, cleaning supplies, and stockpiles of bird supplies. He’d rung the ceiling pipes with strung lights and sewn up curtains to cover both his bed and his bird’s cage for when he wanted to live in an even  _smaller_ space.

It was very cluttered and, by necessity, very organized. He had a whole little life crammed inside his room.

He let his fidgeting bird out of her cage, first. Before even removing his bulletproof vest, he hurried to the farthest corner of his room, springing open her door and releasing the canary to stretch her wings while he changed the cage liner and removed her food and water dishes for cleaning.

His canary wasted no time getting into the air and promptly began flitting from perch to perch, and checking out all the areas of the room, just in case they’d changed while she’d been locked up.

He watched her for a few moments, and when she didn’t linger in one corner particularly long, he asked her, “Anyone come in while I was out?”

Female canaries didn’t usually sing unless they had been trained to, and his little birdy certainly had a set of pipes. She belted out the four-note diddy that meant no, Gilbert, no. No one has come for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9 is already in the works and will hopefully come quicker than this one
> 
> Shachaai saved this series everyone go thank her
> 
> It’s been a hell of a semester for me, and Dyrim as well from what I’ve heard, so please forgive us and I’ll try to have some more content out p soon


	12. Set Yourself On Fire - Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot changes in three years. Has it really been three years? It has been only three years, and they are dying.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: impoundment, disscussed shortages

“Ludovico?”

Ludwig jumped as the door to his apartment squeaked open. He rubbed at his eyes, taking his reading glasses off and setting them neatly on the table before him. “Feliciano? What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Feliciano said, stepping into the apartment properly. “Gilbert told me you weren’t feeling well after hearing the news—about the Angel. I wanted to check in on you!”

Just as Feliciano closed the apartment door, Ludwig saw his brother shuffle out of sight. Gilbert hadn’t been there when the news was first brought, but he’d—he’d found out anyway. Ludwig assumed he had some way of picking up classified information through the gossip chain. Not that Ludwig would have kept this from his brother, nothing would disguise Francis’ sudden absence, but—

Ludwig must have looked less composed at the news than he thought he did.

He’d followed what little investigation he was permitted to know about, which was considerably more than most people, due to his closer relations to the Angel project. He’d been interviewed no fewer than five times, and been permitted to witness the ransacking of Francis’ apartment.

They’d found…more than Ludwig wished they had found. There was a heap of metled plastic covering much of the floor of Francis’ private room. The fire alarms, they learned, had been disabled externally. From the melted heap, they did manage to salvage the shell of one of the small black cameras Ludwig had given to Francis not so long ago. Several scraps of film remained intact enough to be viewed, none of it particularly revealing—a few stills from what appeared to be a home made porno, which Francis had certainly told Ludwig about, and then a very short sequence of what looked like Arthur asleep in bed with a prostitute, which Francis had certainly not told Ludwig about.

And then there had been the journal the officers had found when they cracked Arthur’s desk in two.

He could have happily gone his whole life without knowing about that journal.

Ludwig had got lost in his thoughts, and in the meantime, Feliciano reached the couch. Feliciano’s hands fidgeted behind his back, his head hung low like he was guilty of something— _oh—_

“Thank you for coming, Feli,” Ludwig said, remembering his manners. “I’m glad to see you.”

It successfully perked Feliciano up somewhat to be told he was welcome. With much less reservation, he stopped fidgeting and promptly hopped to Ludwig’s side, plopping down unceremoniously on the couch. “What’s all the stuff on the table?”

The spare parts collection had taken residence on the table some weeks before and only grown since. “Just. Just things to tinker with, really. Learning how to build new body parts mechanically, before I have to do it on the fly. I was—I’m trying to make a brain right now. Unfortunately that means I have to learn neuroscience at the same time, so it’s quite an affair…”

“Wow… you’re doing some really cool stuff, then!” Feliciano said, chirping, curling his legs under him on the couch. He took a moment to look at Ludwig, smiling brightly, only to have the smile fade from his face slowly. “….are you okay? Like, really okay?”

Ludwig nodded, turning back to the clutter on the coffee table. “I’m fine, I promise. It’s… it’s upsetting, yes, but it isn’t logical to be distressed over deserters.”

Feliciano scooted closer to Ludwig’s side until his cheek was pressed against Ludwig’s shoulder. “Is there something else about it that’s upsetting to you?”

Ludwig felt it was worth it to take a few extra moments to reply, trying to find away around saying he missed Francis, and how it was probably wrong, and they were traitors, and every time someone died on the table he drank a little more in the night, and Arthur would have happily been dead on the table—he took a few extra moments delay to see if he could make the adamantium mimic the newspaper-like folds of a brain before saying, “I suppose there’s more. I would have liked to know earlier—I understand it was classified, but… I would have liked to know why they suddenly stopped contacting me. To know before a whole week had passed why they were suddenly unreachable. Perhaps have been left a note. Some sort of explanation.”

Feliciano nodded. Ludwig could feel the motion against him, even without turning his head. Feliciano’s small hand was curled in his shirt. “You were friends with them since school, weren’t you?”

“Francis and I… knew each other, yes,” Ludwig said. “We shared some classes and we used to study together for some of the gen ed classes. Kirkland, I didn’t know until later, but after all this, I suppose I…”

“You care about them?” Feliciano helpfully supplied.

One was not supposed to care about traitors. Quickly, Ludwig said, “I feel responsible! For. Not noticing. Or swaying them. I mean, not even having the sign of a struggle, there’s—there’s not much more damning your evidence can get, right?”

He let out a humorless laugh and crinkled the sheet of adamantium between his fingers.

“Mmh,” Feliciano said, the hand on Ludwig’s back spreading its fingers and starting to rub in wide circles. “I see.”

000

Feliciano and Ludwig met, officially, during the Angel’s construction.

After Ludwig was assigned to the hospitals of Pompeii, they met each other on the streets during his morning transit. Then they were meeting up in coffee shops. In restaurants. In ampetheaters for performances they sometimes ended up skipping. In art galleries Ludwig would have previously never been to. In the stands of the fastest, most expensive car shows. In the spaces between the flower shops and the boutiques. In the back of the same cab.

It was only a matter of time before they end up meeting in one of their apartments.

(They were, of course, not dating. It would be ridiculous and very, very illegal for Ludwig to date the Emperor’s grandson without explicit, written, legal consent. However, if the Emperor’s grandson happened to, say, request to borrow his kitchen for the evening in order to make a dinner, and Feliciano wanted to share the produced food as thanks, well, there was nothing wrong with that. )

When Feliciano met _Gilbert_ for the first time, there was really nothing very noteworthy about him, except that he was different, and that he was tired.

Gilbert was always tired, as he was always either sitting or standing on the other side of a door. Ludwig’s door. At the time he’d only been there a few weeks.

He saluted Feliciano as he was supposed to. There was nothing that could be respectable that Feliciano wasn’t, therefore, even though Gilbert’s back was stiff, he was exhausted, there were deep bags under his eyes, and he just didn’t have any shine in him anywhere, Gilbert snapped up a perfect salute and opened the door for Feliciano, wishing a goodnight in his most sincere voice which was absolutely, irrevocably dead.

And Feliciano didn’t go in.

He peered under the hood of Gilbert’s uniform instead, wondering why it was still up indoors, in his _presence_ , somehow not realizing it was probably up for a reason. His pretty brown eyes opened a little bit wider at what he saw.

“Ah, wow,” Feliciano said, still not going through the door. He straightened up once again and looked right and left down the hallway. “You’re the only guard? So who are you, then? What’s your name?”

“Gilbert Beilschmidt, sir,” Gilbert said, waiting for him to move.

“Beilschmidt?” Feliciano asked. He snapped his fingers as if in realization, “That would make sense, how you got the job. Are you Ludwig’s cousin?”

Caer Beilschmidt didn’t have a sibling, but a cousin was still painfully more plausible than the truth. Still, Gilbert told him, “No, sir, I’m his brother, sir,” and Feliciano—

Gilbert had never thought of a face cracking before, but then, just for a moment, he heard Feliciano’s voice pitch high and his smile go—

  
“Your _brother_?”

>

000

Alfred was the last one through the door. Before he could make it to the little square table in the middle of the little square lounge, the General told him to wait, held up a hand, and crossed the room once more to demonstrate how to seal the door airtight.

Alfred didn’t ask if there was any specific reason why they were supposed to seal every door they came through, or why every room with a sealed door also had at least one little cluster of transparent green ‘leaves’ and a small, silent machine that could convert CO2 to oxygen for about five days in a row.

Their underground fortress could withstand bombings. Gas however, was much more difficult to dodge once it found a crack, as it could be engineered heavier than air and drift downwards like a slow curtain. Good luck if the gas was flammable. Sealing the doors made evacuations more difficult, but—well. Well, evacuations hadn’t been going so well these last few years, apparently.

So Alfred sealed the door and was done with it. He joined Matthew on one side of the table, which was not made to seat two on one edge, so they wound up with their elbows rubbing and ankles vying for space. Neither moved away.

They were alone in the room—a lounge, maybe, though it was far emptier than any of the other spare rooms acting as lounges they’d ever seen—with the General, and the moment they were all settled in, General Steve Hunter dropped two cups of coffee in front of them and wrapped both brothers in a bone-bending hug. Alfred responded in kind, while Matthew just sort of took it, making a soft whining sound and asking for the arms around his chest to be loosened.

“Shit, sorry,” Steve said, releasing both and taking a step back. “Are you hurt somewhere?”

Matthew shook his head quickly, “No, no, nothing like that. You just… have quite a grip, still.”

“Good,” Steve said, smiling again. He reached around and gave both brothers a powerful pat on the back instead of another embrace.

General Hunter hadn’t changed in the three years, and neither had the coffee set before them.

Steve Hunter was dark skinned and well muscled, and never fully in a uniform. He had a wide jaw strong enough to break rocks on, and a tattoo crawling up his chest and shoulders of what he claimed was a crocodile. It was made up of dots, heavily stylized, with distinctive bright colors. No one really questioned it or asked what a crocodile was supposed to be.

The coffee, by contrast, was pure ground caffeine with the consistency of watered-down sludge. After three years of milk, wine, and chocolate, Matthew finished up about half his mug before passing it to his brother, who downed the remaining concoction like a shot before returning to his own mug and nursing it.

“So,” Steve said, sitting in the chair across from them. The chairs in the lounge were cushioned with recycled shirts stuffed with plastic on its last cycle of recycling. They weren’t as soft as goosedown or cotton, but it was still better than hard steel. “I guess this is gonna be your debrief. I want you two to go get some rest as soon as you can, so this is gonna hopefully be quick, but anything you remember that might be important—let us know. I got a recorder going now so no one has to try to write it down, but let’s get this over with.”

Alfred nodded, as did Matthew beside him. Alfred started. “Yeah, uh. So we were there ‘about two years and three months; it took us a while to just get into the system after setting up the IDs on Louie. We were… mostly sleeping with generals who were on leave, I think.”

He turned to his brother for confirmation, and Matthew nodded, adding, “Yeah. Yeah, I think mostly the only important people we got up to were the ones getting secondary instructions, so it wasn’t… mostly what we got we gave you, so like the troop movement stuff and stations and new weapons. We got high enough up to start being invited to the nicer parties and were hoping to find some strategists or Caers, but then Matthew ended up with Arthur. There was a—”

“—Tell me about those two,” Steve said.

“Well, there’s two  more years worth of stuff first?” Alfred said.

“Did something as important as them happen in those two years that we didn’t hear about?” said Steve. When Alfred and Matthew didn’t respond, he continued, “We have them detained separately, but we need to know more about them before we can try to relax. You’re sure he’s the Angel?”

The brothers looked at each other again. Matthew spoke: “He’s... needed to operate it. We’re not entirely sure how it works, but he’s one of the founders and operators. They can’t do anything without him, and from what it sounds like, he’s pretty irreplaceable.”

“Are you sure?” Steve said. Matthew nodded again, opening his mouth to continue, then Alfred interrupted anything he may have been about to say.

“If he weren’t, Francis wouldn’t have mentioned stopping the Angel as an incentive to us taking them in. They’ve apparently got more information about it than anyone else, and it can’t be used. I mean, I guess they could be just saying everything they can to avoid being killed? But if there’s an Assault while they’re here and their story’s bogus, they’ve lost the only incentive we have to keep them around. Somehow they’ve been able to stop it as long as they’re here.”

Matthew nodded, “Yeah. And I think they _do_ know more about it than most, if nothing else. If their information’s _accurate_. I know Arthur’s been fed numbers that don’t match up to what we’ve seen. He had reports filed in his room.”

“I think Francis knows more. But he’s claiming Arthur’s the key to the assaults, and if we hurt Arthur I doubt Francis would tell us anything useful,” Alfred finished.

 “So they’re trying to ensure they’re kept alive and well. Makes sense.” Steve groaned and rubbed the side of his jaw and rolled his shoulders until they cracked. “Not too happy to hear that they’ve got at least one brain in their heads, but we’ll make due. Now, there’s no way they’ve got trackers on them?”

Matthew glanced at Alfred. “…if they have, they should be out of range now, right?”

Alfred nodded. “Yeah. Uh… the carrier ship should’ve had a decontamination thing once we hit open space, and that would’ve hopefully shorted any tracker out. If there _is_ a tracker that still works, then it’ll be putting out information as radio, so we’d be able to jam it if it is there. But we didn’t have any weird broadcasts picked up on the carrier, so either it’s a signal that’d get masked by ours anyway, or it isn’t activated. Then again, I don’t really think the Empire ever expected anyone to try and leave Pompeii, so it could be they honestly didn’t plant anything on them. It’d just make extra noise if you had a bunch of trackers on people who weren’t going to do anything to warrant them, right?”

Matthew nodded after a moment and hesitantly added, “They didn’t even put something like that on us, and we were technically kind of property there. So unless it was in the food or water somehow, we should be fine I think.”

Steve sighed again, “Good.”

He rocked back in his seat.

“Look, hey,” Alfred said after a moment. “What’s exactly going to happen to them?”

“Nothing bad,” Steve said. “Nothing like what they could’ve done to you. Getting yourself fucking held hostage.”

Alfred scowled and took an angry sip of coffee, mumbling about _not my fault Matthew didn’t warn me, geez,_ but Steve kept talking over him.

“No, we’re gonna keep ‘em in cells and try to… talk to them. But we’re trying to keep ‘em happy beyond that. They may not know the exact way to find us, but if anyone’s capable of ratting us out to the empire, right now, it’s them. The only reason we took this many risks was because of disabling the Angel; otherwise, it’d just be a matter of time before we were all wiped out completely.”

“Are things really that bad?” Matthew said, casting a wary look at his brother. Alfred still hadn’t lifted his eyes from the coffee mug.

“It gets worse, if you let me talk,” Steve said. “We don’t have Britannic anymore.”

Matthew sucked a breath in through his teeth.

“Is anyone alive?” Alfred asked, finally setting the mug down. He reached under the table to take Matthew’s wrist and squeeze.

“Yeah. They weren’t… it wasn’t what we thought it would be. We’re not _entirely_ sure what the Empire did, but Britannic went quiet for at least a week. Then suddenly, back online all at once. Back to functioning. All that jazz. Everything, except we don’t have water or salt coming out of it anymore, and we haven’t been able to contact any known allies there.”

“But we saw that coming, right?” Matthew said. “Don’t we have a stockpile?”

“Yeah, there’s a stockpile,” Steve said, sighing again. He leaned forward, closer to the twins then, his elbows on the table and his hands folded in front of his face like a mask as he said, “But Rishi and Meena’s cargo ship didn’t bring in as much as we’d hoped they would. Between the loader malfunctioning and a couple of crates being contaminated during the insecure takeoff, well, we’ve already been rationing for a while in preparation, but we don’t know how long it’s gonna _be_ that we can find another water source. Seeding doesn’t work like we’d hoped, and recycling the water can only work for certain things. It won’t help us with drinking.”

“Can we boil it to purify it?” Alfred said.

“That’s what the kitchens are trying to do, but the trouble comes with energy and escaping steam. If the steam gets above-ground, we’re just losing water to an atmosphere that is a giant bitch about making rain. Not to mention trying to gatherit back. Eventually, we’ll run out just from evaporation through the air vents, but the worry is that boiling everything will just make it go even faster. So we’re keeping stuff sealed up as best we can for now and looking for… something. A lake, or a quick-fix. Anything to hold us off until someone figures something out.”

“That’s a lot of ‘something’s,” Matthew mumbled.

“Is there a—” Alfred started.

“—Water purifier? No. Not even a broken one you could try to reverse engineer, kid,” Steve said, taking another deep breath and dropping his hands. He held his eyes closed for a long time before looking directly at the brothers again, for what felt like the first time in the conversation. “I’m sorry you two had to come home to this.”

“Yeah,” Alfred said. “Well I’m sorry I drank two fucking cups of coffee before you told me there was a water shortage.”

Steve sighed and started to say something about, “Alfred, it’s coffee,” when Alfred set his mug on the table and pushed back his chair. Said, “Mattie. Just tell me anything important I need to know. I gotta go.”

He stood, unsealed the door, and left the room.

Steve and Matthew watched him go.

“Did he just walk out?” Steve said.

Matthew nodded slowly, having some trouble unsticking his lips.  “I think, uh. He didn’t mean it. It’s been a stressful… three and a half years.”

“Temper not gotten any better, then?” Steve said.

“He was really good about it during the mission and on the ship,” Matthew was quick to say, spinning to face the general again, spotting the skepticism on his face. “He was! He’s been through a lot, now he has a short fuse, you know that.”

Steve took a moment to look Matthew over as best he could, taking in his face and hair, all of which had changed so much since he’d seen the elder brother so long ago on Prien’s surface, just after the dropping of the first moon, when both siblings were both curled under trauma blankets, faces white, hair matted.

“You’ve been through a lot too, Matthew,” the general said.

Very briefly, Matthew laughed. It was light sound.

“We should get back to the meeting. It’ll give Al some time to feel guilty. Is there anything else I can help with?”

000

“So,” Alfred said. “We’re having a water shortage… and you’re making stew?”

Miguel gave him a look that would pierce the hearts of a thousand wild horses and pin them dead where they stood. Miguel always gave him those sorts of looks. Three years hadn’t changed that.

“What you’re looking at,” Miguel said, very slowly and deliberately, with hand gestures, as though he unkindly doubted Alfred’s capacity to understand, “is called a motherfucking slow cooker. We seal the top and put towels over it so steam doesn’t escape. And the best way to make a lot of ingredients last while still feeding a lot of lazy fucks. Is to put your worthless leftovers. In a pot together.”

“ _My_ worthless leftovers? _Your_ worthless leftovers,” Alfred said. “I cleaned my plate every day, dude. Dishwasher couldn’t’ve done it better.”

“Too bad that doesn’t give you any say in what we’re eating,” Miguel said, hand extended. “Tuesday’s stew day. Gimme your fucking bowl.”

Miguel was one of the head cooks in the kitchen; he’d been born on the surface of Prien back when it had a habitable zone, though the window was short lived. He was dark skinned with cornrows pulled back into an impressive pony tail. He was sort of intimidating to look at; even though he was short, he was stocky, wider than a lot of doorframes, but also strong enough to bust any doorframe down that wouldn’t admit him. Maybe not literally, but it was the sort of vibe Alfred got off the guy.

Most people told Alfred the vibe they got from Miguel was more of laid back. Maybe kind of exasperated, at worst.

Maybe they weren’t talking about the same guy. Or maybe Alfred and Miguel had a unique way of getting along.

They probably just didn’t get along.

“Where the fuck’s your brother?” Miguel said, angrily pouring Alfred a ladleful of stew. “Don’t tell me you lost him. He was the only good thing about knowing you.”

“Mattie’s still in a meeting.” Alfred took the bowl back with a huff, then giving it back a moment later when Miguel glared at him while gesturing to a side dish. “You gonna give me his food too so I’ll have it ready when he gets out?”

“Fuck no, the cute one needs his food warm, and I wanna talk to him. What kind of meeting’s he in that you’re not there too? Three years and now they’re finally separating you two? Poor Matt’ll have a hernia.” Miguel passed the bowl back to Alfred more willingly this time, now with a few extra nutrient chunks and a handful of crackers on the side. A little plastic lid fit overtop the stew to keep it warm and reduce evaporation.

“I _was_ in it.”  


“Got kicked out?”

“Left…”

Miguel had turned to serving the next person in the line, but paused mid ladle. “Kid, get your ass in my kitchen and explain that one to me.”

Their conversation, or whatever it was, paused for a few minutes while Alfred took his tray, picked up a squeeze-bottle drink, and moved into the kitchen behind Miguel’s station. He found a place to sit on a small, unused crate, which unfortunately made him much shorter than Miguel, but it at least allowed him to set his tray in his lap.

“So you ran out of a meeting,” Miguel said, capping the slow cooker again. “The first meeting you’d’ve had time for since arriving. So you ran out of your _debriefing?_ ”

“Can it,” Alfred said, taking the first uncertain sip of his stew. It wasn’t Pompeii’s food, or even Louie’s food, but it was a whole leap and bound better than the ration packs from the cargo ship, and suddenly his hunger seemed much closer to bottomless. He took a bigger bite. “It wasn’t much of a debrief. We skipped over more than two years worth of stuff, and then once we said the guys weren’t dangerous in any way we were gonna be able to help, he started giving us the bad news.”

Miguel snorted, stirring the cooker a moment and ladling out the next bowl. Covering the bowl. Sides. Next. “You may as well have stuck your fingers in your ears and started singing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna get those lectures anyway as I go, so why should I get worked up about it right now and fuck up in the near future when I can put it off a while?”

The little stack of crackers Miguel held in his hands cracked in two. He growled and set them aside to be used elsewhere before giving the current serv-ee a new stack. “Boy, you had better not make _any_ situation worse than it already is right now. Especially not for your brother.”

“That’s why I left, haven’t you been listening?” Alfred said, “Can I have one of those broken crackers?”

Miguel picked one up and crushed it to dust in his fist. He let the cracker flakes fall into Alfred’s stew.

“Thanks, dude.”

“Ingrate.”

“I said ‘thanks’!” Alfred took another large spoonful of the stew, grumbling. “Anyway, like I said, people’re gonna tell me about the new regulations and stuff as I come across them. So it’s not like I’ll be actually missing anything, I just won’t have the whole pile of shit be dumped on me all at once.”

“So you’d rather a slow build? Haven’t you ever heard of just jumping in and getting it all over with?”

“Have you _seen me_ when I get overwhelmed?”

“Good point,” Miguel said. “If I find out you’re making Matt’s life hell, I’ll find a nice empty room to dump your corpse where you won’t bother anyone anymore. Now get the fuck out of my kitchen.”

000

Arthur had not realized how quiet his cell was until the door bolt unlocking almost startled him out of his skin.

His immediate thought was interrogation—this had been, was, it was so _different_ than what he remembered from Francis’ schoolday impromptu interrogation study sessions.

Arthur had been left alone, which was certainly expected and far more nerve wracking than he thought it would be, but he’d been left _alone_. In however long he’d been in the cell, not a single guard or interrogator had come, though he wasn’t sure how long it had been. He remembered hearing about dehydration and sense deprivation, starvation and assaults,and perhaps it was just too early for him to feel the effects of any of that, if that’s what they were doing, and when the door burst open his first thought was—

Oh, they wouldn’t have sent Matthew to interrogate him.

He hoped not.

Matthew shut the door behind him far more quietly than Arthur expected it to close. Perhaps there was a trick to it. He left it unbolted, but the room again lost any outside noise. In one hand Matthew balanced a food tray, and in the other, he held a plastic sac-like item filled with water, with a plastic straw sprouting seamlessly out of one end. Arthur recognized it vaguely as the sort of water ration packed for use mostly in zero-g or dangerous environments.

“Hey,” Matthew said. His quiet voice seemed so loud after so long in the empty cell. He was used to cells that—that buzzed. Cells with more mechanical parts then he did. Cells with brains. “How are you?”

“All right,” Arthur said. Perhaps he was whispering, but he found it very hard to force his volume any louder. Thankfully, instead of commenting, Matthew followed his lead. He practically whispered as he sat down beside Arthur, tray in hand.

“You and Francis are both safe, no one’s going to hurt you here. They just want to take precautions by keeping you separate. Francis is fine. I brought you some dinner.”

He handed out the tray. There was a bowl with a plastic cap on it, a set of crackers, and the water packet. Arthur took them gratefully, feeling his hunger awaken at the scent of food.

“Thank you,” Arthur said. He peeked under the bowl’s lid to find a reddish colored stew with chunks of protein and bits of chopped vegetables floating in it. Not the prettiest, but the scent was enormously appealing. He took up the plastic spoon and had a first hesitant bite. “What happens now?”

“I’m gonna wait for you to finish eating, and then take the stuff back to the kitchens. Someone will probably come by and ask you questions. Maybe figure out a way we can make things more comfortable for you.”

Arthur nodded and took another sip of the stew. “…and are you coming back?”

Matthew gave him an odd sidelong look, a sort of questioning one, as he watched Arthur eat. “I mean, as long as you want me to come back, yeah, I will.”

Arthur nodded once again, not sure if he was supposed to be embarrassed or not for assuming Matthew had either been sent to spy on him or to say goodbye.

“There is another thing you should know,” Matthew said after a long moment of quiet. “It’s about your family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name Key: 
> 
>  
> 
> Miguel – Cuba
> 
> Steve Hunter - Australia
> 
> 000
> 
> Sometimes I think about how few characters have canonical siblings or sibling-like characters who are ever mentioned / important, and then there’s like… my fics.
> 
> The water bags: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/iss_water_med2.jpg
> 
> Chapter 10 is in the works.


	13. Simmer - Silversun Pickups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, it's less about trusting and more about being trustworthy.
> 
> Warnings for: Discussions of emotional/mental manipulation and abuse of trust.

Gupta hadn't heard anything about Caer Kirkland for weeks.

His mother walked through the house tight-lipped with furrowed brows. She spent extra time putting on makeup in the morning and stayed later and later at work, until finally it felt like she was never at home at all.

Gupta told Feliciano Vargas, and hoped it was enough. Feliciano Vargas neither confirmed nor denied it, but sent his albino guard dog out of the room not long after, which may have been a show of trust. Gupta did not send away Sadiq.

They ferried between Pompeii and and the Academy regularly, now. Though his mother was rarely home, she accepted every time he requested to come home for a weekend. Aside from—from the other reasons he wanted to be at home, there was a faint hope twisting in his chest that said perhaps being around would help his mother in some way, even if it was just giving her an excuse to sit down and watch a tv show on the weekends. Those nights had also become fewer and fewer, though, and Gupta had to go back to the Academy after a weekend alone.

As soon as he left Pompeii, what thin streams of information he had dried up. No longer could he simply walk down the halls and hear the guards gossip about the latest events (being the quiet sort, perhaps they assumed he never took notice) or witness them right in front of him as the days passed like new laws and judgments. The Academy may have been considered an information source in itself, but it had its own structure which always came first, before the politics of the rest of the galaxy. Tangled up in grades and test scores, class hierarchies and rankings, family names.

Gupta was above all that. He did not engage. Others did not engage him. It created a barrier between himself and the rest of the world—a barrier which he could only partly surmount by reading the news or intentionally seeking it out in class, thus putting him on the same time-frame as the rest of the Empire. The Academy was meant to be a grand center of learning with the most up-to-date information, making use of current events to educate her students, yet it was still a whole day later that he found out about Caer Kirkland.

Or. The  _new_ Caer Kirkland.

"She resigned," Xiao Mei said, holding up her computer screen up for Gupta to see. In his shock, he reached out to hold the computer but wound up knocking her with his arm, dislodging the flower from her long brown hair. He immediately set to apologizing.

It was a very quiet apology, but he had been using so many words lately that he didn't quiet feel capable of using more. Clasping hands and apologetic eyes seemed to get the message through, though, and Xiao Mei allowed him to help wind the pink flower back into her hair before attempting to show him the article again.

"See?" she said. "She stepped down the day before the blockade on Britannic was let down. She's been quiet ever since, apparently. Not making any statements or been seen around anywhere. Not that I blame her, I mean,  _I_  wouldn't want to be seen by anyone after my own kid usurped my position. And her other two are still on the run. You think this new guy's even qualified?"

She scrolled down with quick fingers to the image of Llewellyn W. Kirkland provided on the page. He did not look very much like a politician, Xiao Mei was right about that. He looked a little closer to a drowned rat. No doubt once he got out of the rain and onto Pompeii, he would look better, but in the meantime, the new Caer in the image was gaunt and slightly off-color, with what looked like a bruise crawling up the side of his face. Gupta tapped at it, enlarging the discoloration.

"Uh," Xaio Mei said, "Got it from running into a force field, apparently, trying to stop his brothers from escaping. That's apparently part of why he was chosen. I guess he's loyal, at least."

Gupta nodded, and looked at the picture a bit longer. Another caption on the page said the new Caer was being brought to Pompeii within the week to claim their mother's legacy and—well, Caer Kirkland, the old Caer Kirkland, had never been much of a pleasure to be around. It was more like being in a room with a rabid dog than a human being. A rabid dog with long wild hair and a penchant for cloaks. Gupta had not liked her. He never expected her to leave like this: quietly, and without fanfare.

He did not think any of the mothers he knew in court would simply fade away so quietly. Not with an under-qualified replacement announced, calmly announced in an article that—Gupta took control over the computer momentarily to scroll to the top of the page and get the date and address—an article from an Academy-exclusive newsletter, with five other articles listed above it in importance.

He wondered, for a moment, if he turned the tv on, would he see this reported? Was it in civilian newspapers? How far buried was it, if it did exist in civilian newspapers?

Xiao Mei gently nudged him out of his thoughts with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said, "I just thought it was interesting, I didn't know it'd put  _that_ kind of look on your face. Is everything okay?"

Gupta nodded, sat back away from the computer screen, and tried to think of an excuse. She tapped him on the shoulder for his attention before he was able to come up with one.

"Hey," she said. "There's good news."

 _Oh?_ He leaned forward.

"Yeah. They're rebooting that sitcom you like," she said. Gupta frowned at her, but she pointed to a different news article on the sidebar of her screen, grinning. "See?  _Cleo_ 's being remade with that one actress who played Nefertiti in  _The Three Hundred_."

Gupta found his voice long enough to groan and cover his face with his hands, but was smiling behind his hands. Xiao Mei grinned down at him, catlike and triumphant.

"Come on, let's go get something to drink and let's see if we can find a trailer. It's gonna be great," she said, closing her computer and sliding it into its sleep mode as a metal bar. She stood and held out a hand to help him up as well. He rolled his eyes and took it.

Sadiq was not following him through the Academy. It was a vacation time for him to rest and recuperate in a nearby apartment, just outside the Academy's walls. It was strange without a second set of footsteps always behind his own. With his newfound secrets, it was lonelier and more uncomfortable without the bodyguard than it had ever been before.

But Xiao Mei and a new reboot of  _Cleo_ would be good distractions.

He would be able to forget for a while.

If he forgot, he wouldn't have to feel responsible for anything happening outside this thriving moon.

000

Arthur handled the news about his family rather well.

After a certain point in the explanation, he didn't even have the energy to cry about it.

000

Alfred had forgotten what it was like to climb the walls. He'd been able to keep his head on fairly easily for three whole years and hadn't given any thought to it, but several weeks hurtling through space in a glorified tin can had sent him back years to hurtling through space and being  _useless_. Then they stuck him underground of all places and told him to rest when he'd been on a job full-time for three whole years, and fuck he had forgotten how easy it was to get him  _climbing the motherfuckin walls_ —

Matthew's vice grip on his hair helped.

In a painful kind of way.

But it gave him something to focus on when he was rolling on the floor trying to get out of his brother's grip.

"Holy  _shit_  Matt, let go!" He said, prying at Matthew's fingers.

"No! Not until you apologize!"

"What did I do?"

" _Look at our room, asshole._ "

Alfred did look around, as best he could when Matthew's fingers were digging into his skull like they were. Their room did not actually consist of a  _room_ , but more of a nonspecific space surrounding their beds, as they shared the room with six other men. Four sets of bunkbeds lined the walls, one in each corner, with a box at the foot of each bunk for personal effects. To give a sense of privacy—and once upon a time, to provide cover in case of an invasion and gunfight, though that was no longer anyone's primary concern—three large barriers could be erected at various places in the room. They only served to partly block the view from the other bunks, and the top bunks were all still visible to each other, but it gave some sense of order. And everything from Alfred and Matthew's barriers to their bunk had either fallen off the bed or been tossed out of their box, leaving all their effects splayed across the floor.

"Ow!" Alfred said again as Matthew gave his hair a tug. "I didn't do this, it was like it when I came here."

"As if," Matthew said. "You were trying to hang upside down from the top bunk when I came in here, I don't believe you for a  _second._ "

"It's true, though," Alfred said, frowning up at his brother. He gripped Matthew's wrist with one hand and twisted around on the floor, rolling over entirely and bringing a leg up to swipe at Matthew's knees. He didn't fall, but he did release Alfred's hair long enough to jump back. "I mean, yeah, I was hanging upside down for a bit there, but I didn't throw everything around! I thought you hadn't finished unpacking."

"I finished unpacking this morning, there was nothing  _to_ unpack."

"Well, I didn't un-unpack anything," Alfred said with a huff.

"Well, who did?"

"I don't know. I only just got back."

"From where?"

"Breakfast. Jeez, when did you become the interrogator?"

"When—I'm not!"

Alfred noticed, then, that Matthew's cheeks were abnormally red, and his hair was in disarray. "Are you okay, dude?"

"I'm fine." Matthew balled his fists.

"Did something happen this morning? You look like shit."

"Thanks, bro, that really makes me feel a lot better." But Matthew unballed his fists. He crossed his arms instead. Still not a good sign—closed off—but at least he wasn't about to take out his frustration on Alfred's hair anymore.

"Look, I'll pick up the room if you want me to, but what happened? Seriously."

He waited until Matthew sighed and sat on the bottom bunk before setting to pick up the scattered items. Really, there wasn't much. Most of their personal possessions had been recycled when they took on the undercover job. Now, all they had were two sets of clothing (one of them the set brought from Italia), a few photographs lying on the bottom of the box, a spare blanket (just one), and a few scraps of long fabric Matthew used to tie back his hair.

Buttons, pins, stuffed animals, and electronics—those had all been recycled into the system.

"Have you talked to General Hunter, lately?" Matthew asked, his crossed arms going slack. He didn't look at Alfred. Alfred didn't look either. He sat crosslegged on the floor and started folding one of the shirts taken from Italia.

"No, I was too busy trying to hang upside down from the bed. Why?"

"Things aren't going well," Matthew said.

"What things?"

"Can you think of a thing that can go badly?"

"Yeah. A couple."

"All of those things are probably going badly."

Alfred hummed, set the shirt in the box, and moved on to a nearby pair of pants. Talking and having something to do with his hands settled his nerves a little, even though he was already running out of clothes to fold. "Arthur and Francis, too?"

"Yeah," Matthew said. He sighed. "Mostly Arthur. But yeah. They're safe in their cells, but isolation's really messing with him. I paid a visit earlier today to tell him about his family, but that wasn't… really the best news, I guess."

"Ah, yeah, that probably didn't help much," Alfred nodded, more to himself than Matthew. "Maybe you should've waited."

"Would it have been better to hide something like that from him? Tell him once he's released?"

"Maybe," Alfred said. "I mean, we have already been lying to them for a good few months, now. It wouldn't exactly be a change of pace."

"Yeah, but we're trying to not do that right now, remember? Gaining their trust?" Alfred was pretty sure Matthew was rolling his eyes right now. He was tempted to throw the folded pants at Matthew's head instead of in their box.

"I think you'll probably gain his trust more by talking about model trains or some shit, I dunno," he said instead. "Interrogations not being useful enough? Did Hunter tell you to cozy up to him more, or what?"

"No, he didn't." Matthew's sigh was louder this time. "I decided to try and be nicer to him  _myself._  You kinda get attached to someone you've been snuggling with every single night. We talked a lot on the flight over. Unlike  _some_ people, who were having hissy fits the whole way."

"Hey." Alfred turned around and stuck a finger out at his brother. "I still resent being tied up and held ransom for two days, okay? I resent it."

"I get that," Matthew said.

"Clearly, you don't," Alfred said. "I was  _worried_ about you, dude."

Matthew leveled a look at him. "You, the kidnapping victim, were worried about me."

"Yeah?" Alfred raised his eyebrows and jerked a thumb towards the dividers between them and the rest of the empty room. "You think I trust this place to help either of us? What if they'd told you to 'go fuck yourself, don't spill any of our secrets when Bonnefoy tortures you. You signed up for this and knew what you were getting into,'?"

"I did know what I was getting into," Matthew said. He huffed again and crossed his arm, shuffling closer to sit down next to Alfred on the floor. "And I knew Steve wasn't going to abandon us."

"Steve wouldn't  _want_ to, but he's not a general because he makes good strategic decisions, it's because he's halfway levelheaded and has a basic idea of how to get people to do dumb bullshit or  _stop_  people from getting super upset over bullshit."

"Mh," Matthew said, resting his chin on his hand, eyes half-lidded and probably mostly humoring Alfred by this point. It made a part of Alfred want to climb right up that wall all over again. "You'll have to be more specific about bullshit, we've sort of waded through a lot."

With a deep breath, Alfred stood and moved closer to his brother, and putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning close to his ear to mumble, "They want to me make Francis talk about how the machine was put together."

Matthew's focus snapped back in an instant. He whispered, "What?"

"The machine they used to make Angel Assaults," Alfred said. "About all we know is it took Arthur and that machine, it sounds like a computer, but together that's how they came up with the strategies. Input data and commands on the computer, the machine uses Arthur's brain as a reference and focal point to create the plans. That's what it sounds like."

"And they want to know how it's made? What, to use the Assaults themselves?"

"Probably," Alfred said. "They're saying that's not it, but that's what it sounds like."

In a far corner of their mind, they were both watching a moon crumble in the sky, and listening to meteors the size of buses crackle burn through the atmosphere.

"I mean, I get it, but…" Matthew said, his eyes sliding down to the floor.

"Yeah, I'm worried hooking Arthur up to that is liable to make Arthur and Francis distrust us enough we'll lose any advantage we have, too," Alfred nodded.

"Oh," Matthew said, blinking. "That too."

"You thinking of something else?"

"No. Nothing, sorry. You think there's something more valuable they can give us?"

"Yeah," Alfred relaxed back, glad Matthew agreed with him. "We've been on Pompeii for a year or two, but were pretty restricted. I still can't totally give you the layout of that city in my head. Arthur and Francis? Lived on Pompeii for years, wandering around and rubbing elbows with about as top brass as we can get without having someone who actually  _lives_ in the Empire's little hivemind palace. Before that they were growing up with the current batch of generals, soldiers, and scientists. If they give us personal intel and a layout of the city, we can hit them directly and head straight for the Emperor, instead of dragging out this war even longer—which is probably what they'll expect us to do. As far as we know, Angel causes a high body count for both sides. The Empire can afford that body count _way_ more easily than we can. Have you been to the nursery yet? There's fucking no one there."

"Maybe there's a way to tell the Angel to reduce bodycount as much as possible," Matthew said, chewing his cheek between his words. "I mean, you give it parameters by inputting information, right? Maybe there's a way you can, I don't know. Set it to using as many non-lethal means as possible?"

Alfred rocked on his heels. "Maybe. But we can't rely on that."

Matthew sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, fine. What  _do_ you suggest we do then? Just hope Francis and Arthur know enough that we can bypass a whole galaxy's worth of defense so we can win a war in one battle?"

"I think we should cover both bases, just to be sure. But we gotta keep kinda low-key about it, because if Arthur, Francis, or the brass notice, I dunno how they'll take it and they may be totally cool but they may also fuck it up for us by getting impatient or just not liking us taking shit into our own hands."

Matthew's eyes narrowed. "What are you getting at?"

"Make nice," Alfred said. "Aside from each other, we're the only ones Arthur and Francis had any real contact with in the rebellion. We play good-cop-bad-cop with the interrogators, volunteer to bring meals, talk to them about stuff, all that sort of stuff until they trust and like us enough that they'd be willing to tell us whatever information we need—and maybe even like us enough that, if you asked him to, Arthur would step back into the machine."

"Al," Matthew said. "I see where you're going with this, and  _no_."

Alfred frowned, beginning to gesture as he spoke."Look, Francis is a headcase and they're thinking he had some sort of intensive training to resist interrogations and confinement, especially when we're not going hardcore because we want them to trust us some. Arthur's got none of that. And he's been in a shitty headspace as long as you've known him, right? It's probably at its absolute worst right now, or it's getting there really fast. He's  _vulnerable_ , and he'll be desperate for someone to latch onto. He already trusts you some. Just—"

"I can't," Matthew said, straightening his back until he was almost looking down at Alfred.

Alfred blinked at him, his hand paused mid gesture. Matthew stared back, lips pursed.

"Al," he said. "No. I can't— _whatever_  someone under this kind of—no. You're totally right that his headspace is completely messed up right now, so I can't  _lie_ to him like this right now. Maybe if he were still our enemy but he's  _not_. He came to us for help."

"You've basically  _romanced_  him under false pretenses before," Alfred frowned, lowering his hand to rap his knuckles on the bedframe. "Weren't you the one who was so determined to get more information you totally went along with it?"

"Weren't you the one who said, 'fuck the mission,' when Mona wanted me to get closer to him?" Matthew got to his feet and balled his fists. His voice was about as far from a whisper as it went without shouting. "Suddenly you're super okay with this?"

Alfred remained where he stood, staring at his brother with steely conviction. "Yeah. This time, you're in control. It's a big fucking difference, Mattie. You won't be  _executed_ if he finds out."

"It'll wreck him," Matthew hissed.  _You didn't read his journals._ "Holy fucking  _shit_ , Alfred, it'll wreck him."

"One person," Alfred whispered, leaning in close and holding a finger up to Matthew's nose. "And you help one billion people. One person, and we can finally have a real home."

000

Gilbert retired to his room late in the night, aching and tired. There'd been one incident that day, which was one more than any day he'd had guarding his brother's side. A dark, long-haired man with ratty clothes and bruised knees had come screaming and demanding to see his child. Somehow he'd gotten intel that the kid wound up on Ludwig's table.

('Which would make him a criminal,' Gilbert said, for they were in public. 'Be glad the rest of your family isn't,' and dispatched him.)

The changing of a Cear was always a hectic time, especially when it happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. No matter how tight the news was strangled by the Emperor's hand, little bits of information always seemed to get squeezed out during this time period, when the whole galaxy perked up a little to pay attention. Gilbert wondered, vaguely, if the little Britannic kid was going to be able to handle it.

Not his problem, though.

None of the Kirklands were his problem.

Gilbert followed Ludwig throughout the day, all the way from the front door of his apartment, down the street where the assault occurred, to outside his lab door, and back again. When Gilbert's shift was done, he'd tagged out and walked back into town to a bar filled with low warm lights and met with the only other red-eyed mistake he knew.

Ro was a short guy with a long temper. Cast iron balls. Snaggle tooth. Could probably have easily fixed that tooth with a skilled enough dentist or surgeon, but on Pompeii, where there was an assumption that everyone had money, keeping the snaggle tooth had turned into a sort of unique fashion statement.

Which just made Gilbert assume Ro was a clever guy, too. Guy'd navigated his way out of the service sector of Pompeii  _somehow_ , he supposed. Most people from off-world were like the bartender currently humbly making their drinks, or the waitstaff slinking through the dark taking orders, or the shaky-handed repairman who checked and replaced every light and wire in the building every night, lest the establishment suffer the shame of a flickering bulb—or any sort of crack in the perfect veneer of the place.

Just a bar where guards and other workers went after a day's work, if they had the money to.

(If Gilbert wasn't so close to being one of them, he wondered if he would have noticed them at all. Feliciano had. But Feliciano was weird. Sometimes it seemed like Feliciano noticed everything, had ears everywhere.)

"You're spacing out a lot today," Ro said, lifting his drink and tapping a manicured nail against the counter, bringing Gilbert out of his head. "Thought you wanted to talk today? But if you want to just get shitfaced you're gonna haveta drink a little faster you know."

"Nah I ain't getting shitfaced tonight," Gilbert said, lifting his own glass and taking a drink.

"Too bad," Ro said, blinking his big red eyes. They looked brown. A contrast of gently brown contacts and bright red clothes gave the impression his eyes were just a particularly vibrant brown. A natural brown, but a particularly vibrant brown. If you caught him in the exact right lighting, the red shone through brilliantly, but only in the way that brown eyes flared red as a trick of the light. "I coulda used some company tonight. But I should've known you'd  _want_ to stay as tense as possible. It's really not healthy for you, you know."

"Hah, trust me, I'll get shitfaced later, but not in public right now. Besides, I have to get up early and work tomorrow. I just wanted a breather. What's up on your end?" he said, taking another drink.

Ro huffed. "Not much. Some people are pestering me a bit because they think I gave away discount tickets for a vacation or something ridiculous like that. You don't think the spaceport would keep me on if I did something silly like that, do you? I have my friends, yeah, but I'm not the sort of person to show favoritism like that. Besides, anyone I'd want to give a vacation to isn't the sort to take me up on it. Everything's terrible."

"Wow," Gilbert said. "Sure sucks to be you."

"It does," Ro said, taking another long drink. He paused a moment and rifled through his pocket, not even flinching as a still-uniformed guard passed right behind him. "Not to mention all the weird people passing through the station lately. I know they all say you should be accommodating of people from other planets, but geez, they could at least learn some manners first and not go running around making such a ruckus. Don't think I'd like to deal with people like that again unless I have to, no sir.—aha!"

"Aha?" Gilbert drained his glass halfway and leaned closer to see what Ro was rifling through his pocket for.

"Aha," Ro confirmed, setting his glass down. "I hearda bit about you having trouble with your brother."

"What? Dude, me and Luddy are—"

"Sh, sh, sh," Ro held up a finger to silence Gilbert before revealing what was hiding in his pocket. "I have  _very good sources_ that tell me you and Ludwig had some stress lately, so I know he can get whatever on his budget, but I figured a gift would still be nice."

He pressed the bar of chocolate into Gilbert's hand without accepting any protest.

"One hundred percent dark chocolate," Ro said, grinning. "Melt and mix it up with some sugar if you want to sweeten it, but you take good care of this, you hear? Share it with someone. It'll help."

"Oh," Gilbert said. "Thanks dude, I don't even know what to say."

"No worries, we all know you're not the eloquent one," Ro said, ducking the swing aimed at his head. As Gilbet huffily drained the last of his drink, Ro laughed.

"One day, douchebag, one day," Gilbert mumbled into the rim of his cup.

"Yeah, one day I'll have a whole army of people nodding along with me. Now go rest up and don't get a hangover tomorrow, yeah? I've got to head back home too, but at least  _I_ won't get in trouble if I show up smashed at my house."

"Rub it in, why don't you," Gilbert said.

He ordered something gentler and some food before heading out, while Ro simply finished his first drink before hopping off his seat and making his way through the crowd and out of the bar.

Gilbert finished his meal, feeling only a little less tense and a little more sober, but he paid his bill and shuffled off as well.

Only once he was in the street, where the only cameras around were hindered by distance, did he pull the chocolate bar out of where he'd stashed it in his pocket. Unwrapping it, he nibbled bit at one of the corners and let his eyes wander to what should have been a blank space on the inside of the wrapper.

Cell block C. Lists of names. Printed by hand but as neat as if they'd been taken directly from the screen of a computer.

Gilbert had always wondered where political prisoners who still had use ended up.

He folded the wrapper back up, smoothed the disturbed edge down, and wandered the rest of the way back to Ludwig's apartment complex at his own pace.

Pompeii was a mess of streets, one knotting into another and into another, and so on, and so forth, from the planet's surface all the way up towards the purple sky. Tonight the sky had darkened to the warm, soft shade of a wholly ripe plum, and the walkways were lit with gold.

Ludwig's apartment complex was, technically, in the inner capital. It hovered near the border, several blocks away from the laboratories where he worked, which were  _definitively_ in the inner capital—a square mile's worth of magnanimous architecture making up secretive laboratories, Caer's housing, barracks for royal guards, and the palace of the Emperor and his heirs.

Gilbert could see it from the street in front of his brother's apartment. The palace. It was domed. Its doors arched. A house made up of balconies. Statues painted bright colors ringed the streets. Though Gilbert had never seen the Emperor—it was hard to see a man who never appeared in public after the death of his child and son-in-law—he knew his face.

It stared down at him from so many of those statues.

The worst statues were the few that had been kept marble-white.

It sort of felt like a joke at his specific expense.

The chocolate bar and its wrapper were still in his pocket. He thumbed at it a moment, watching the palace gleaming in the darkening sky before turning away and heading into the apartment complex.

Up the elevator. Down the hall. Down another hall. Until he reached his door. Fifteenth floor. He ID'd himself and went inside to his little three-by-three room, stretching his arms up over his head and yawning.

"Hey, birdy," he said to his little canary, hopping around her cage in a tizzy. He opened it with another yawn and watched her take off. "Anyone come to visit today?"

Then, his weariness fled him and turned to shock and horror as he realized the song his bird began to sing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [takes a deep breath]
> 
>  
> 
> I am still here.
> 
> I feel like it's been a very long time, and I feel like this chapter isn't enough to apologize for the wait. I looked through some of the old reviews on FFnet and it made me want to try harder again. I'll do my best to reply to anyone who comments. From here on I have mostly vague ideas and signposts of what to do with Arthur and Francis, (please go thank dyrimthespeaker bc she had to wade through an abhorrent number of typos in this chapter and listen to my convoluted plans about the future the day after finishing her finals) though I believe we're at the midway point. If there's anything you'd like to see, especially with side characters, please feel free to let me know. I can also be reached pretty easily on by tumblr (I'm 'beabae' there as well.)
> 
> I'll hopefully be able to write more over the summer. I'm starting and finishing new projects, both hetalia and other fandoms, so if you like my writing also please feel free to check those out as well. I'm taking a gap year to work and travel, so either I will write much more or become more distracted—either way, I have no doubt the quality of my writing will improve in the meantime. I hope that is enough to justify any waits.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been supporting this fic.


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